/alpha

the ALPHA risk-limiting audit method

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ALPHA: Audit that Learns from Previously Hand-Audited Ballots

P.B. Stark

Martingale method for testing hypotheses about the mean of a bounded population, using sampling with or without replacement.

In application to election audits, it "learns" the alternative hypothesis from the audit data, in contrast to BRAVO, which uses the reported results as the alternative.

ALPHA can be substantially more efficient than BRAVO when the reported vote shares are incorrect but the reported electoral outcome is correct. It is competitive with RiLACS.