AUSTIN – Election officials acknowledged holes in election laws that have exposed some Texas ballots to public scrutiny.
The officials, from the state agency that oversees elections and from local election offices, said during a Texas House Election Committee hearing Wednesday that in certain circumstances, a voter’s ballot could be obtained and decoded to identify who they voted for.
Weaknesses in Texas’ ballot secrecy were first reported by the conservative news site Current Revolt, which reported activists had used public information requests to identify the ballot of Matt Rinaldi, the former head of the Republican Party of Texas.
Election officials described the holes in the system as a combination of low voter turnout and election transparency laws that allow the public to access anonymized ballots and other election documents.
“That balance that we have sought between transparency and secrecy has now come to a head,” said Chambers County Clerk Heather Hawthorne, president of the County and District Clerks’ Association of Texas.
Election officials acknowledged that in some cases, members of the public would be able to use a “process of elimination” to match a person with a ballot. Under certain circumstances, that information can be pieced together when very few people vote in a given precinct or polling location.
The same group of activists who exposed holes in ballot secrecy have said in a lawsuit against the Texas secretary of state that they have created an algorithm that can match any voter to an anonymized ballot. Their legal filing revealing the algorithm redacted how their alleged hack of ballot security works.
Lawmakers and officials appeared frustrated with the inability, so far, to vet the allegations of the plaintiffs, who include Laura Pressley, a Williamson County resident who has challenged multiple elections and been involved in movements to eliminate electronic voting.
State Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, asked repeatedly if the secretary of state had exhausted all legal options to force Pressley to turn over the algorithm.
“Have we looked at all options to see if anybody has the authority to try to get a hold of the algorithm to look at it to verify it without having to wait through the machinations of a long civil process to find out what we’re dealing with?” Burrows said.
“We’ve made it very, very clear in all of the different groups that we’ve spoken to that we would very much like to see this algorithm because our hands are tied,” said Christina Adkins, director of elections at the secretary of state’s office.
Company representatives with the two voting machines used in the vast majority of Texas counties said their machines and software were uncrackable.
“I can state with certainty that ES&S does not produce ballots that can be traced to an individual voter,” said Christopher Wlaschin, chief information security officer at Election Systems & Software, which provides voting machines for Dallas County. “Nor do we print anything on the ballot that can be reverse engineered or subjected to mathematical algorithms that can determine how a voter voted.”
The revelation that not all ballots are secure has already prompted action.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office issued a legal opinion last week emphasizing that elections offices are required to redact any personally identifying information from ballots turned over to the public in response to open records requests.
The secretary of state’s office, which oversees elections in Texas, sent emergency guidance to county election officials last week directing counties to adopt procedures to ensure any ballots available for public inspection are scrubbed of any identifying information.
“Every Texan has the right to a secret ballot, and that right must remain sacred. It is unacceptable for any voter to have their ballot choices publicized,” Secretary of State Jane Nelson said. “I am issuing emergency guidance to protect the privacy of Texas voters.”
Adkins called the actions “short-term solutions.” She suggested some changes that would require legislative action, including changing how precinct lines are drawn and aggregating voter return data in low-turnout elections.
“We’re researching what other states are doing in this area,” Adkins said. “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when I think some other states have successfully legislated this issue.”