When an audit, monitoring review, or records request touches a lottery, the requests are predictable: the same six asks, every time. The reasoning is in the companion post, What Auditors Actually Ask For After a Housing Lottery. This page is the pull-list: walk it before any review, or better, the week after each drawing, while everything on it still exists.
Download the printable one-page version (PDF) (free with an AuditDraw account)
Ask 1: The policy in effect on the drawing date
- [ ] The Administrative Plan, ACOP, or tenant selection plan as adopted on the drawing date, not the current version
- [ ] The board action adopting it (resolution, minutes)
- [ ] Confirmation the selection method and preferences described match what the drawing actually did: read the text, not your memory of it
Ask 2: The notice and proof of publication
- [ ] The public notice text as published
- [ ] Proof of every placement: tear sheets, broadcast affidavits, dated photographs, screenshots
- [ ] The placement log: outlet, channel type, date, proof held (template in the Waitlist Opening Toolkit)
- [ ] Evidence the placements included minority media and other suitable means, not newspaper only
Ask 3: The frozen input
- [ ] The applicant file exactly as it existed at window close, preserved, unmodified
- [ ] The entry count, matching the number the drawing processed
- [ ] The de-duplication record: the stated rule, and which entries it removed
Ask 4: The order and its integrity
- [ ] The complete draw order, every position, not just selectees
- [ ] Per-entry timestamps and the log written during the run
- [ ] Preferences visibly operating as the policy describes (tiers ordering, or weights as entry counts)
- [ ] Integrity evidence: a signature derived from the data, or a record generated and held by a neutral third party
- [ ] The PII-removed version, ready to produce without a redaction project
(These are the six components of a defensible record: the full breakdown is in the documentation checklist.)
Ask 5: Offers following the order
- [ ] Records tracing list positions to outcomes: offers made in order, denials with their notices, removals
- [ ] A written justification for every skip, recorded at the time, citing the policy language that permits it
- [ ] Purge documentation showing the policy applied uniformly, with the original draw order retained regardless
Ask 6: Retention and findability
- [ ] The complete record above filed together, in one location
- [ ] Findable by someone other than the person who filed it: test this; turnover is how retention actually fails
- [ ] Retention clock known and met: three years minimum for HCV, longer for LIHTC and many state programs, indefinite while any matter is under challenge
The drill
Once a year, or before any scheduled review, run the exercise from the flagship guide: pick your most recent lottery and answer, using only documents you currently hold: "How do I know these are the results the drawing produced, and not results someone edited afterward?" If the answer is a document, you're ready. If the answer is "because we didn't," start with Ask 4.