With a little time and effort, someone can figure out exactly how an early in-person voter in Harris County, Texas, voted in this year’s elections, according to a lawsuit that says the state’s system destroys the sanctity of the secret ballot.
Texas records every ballot cast, although no name is associated, and makes its poll books available.
According to the lawsuit, the two pieces of information can be connected in several ways, at least for early in-person voters countywide.
Because the poll books list the time and location of the early vote and ballots include the location and time stamp, they can be matched.
Ballots can also be precisely matched using an ID number assigned so poll workers can print out the correct ballot for a specific voter, said J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation and one of the lawyers who filed the lawsuit.
“The secret ballot is fundamental to the fabric of American political life and has been for about 150 years. The technology being used in Texas destroys that tradition,” he said.
The lawsuit names Harris County because officials there allegedly have failed to follow state guidance on redacting the identifying information from the voting records they release.
The Washington Times has sought comment from the county’s top executive.
All sides say the problem stems from Texas’ attempt to make voting more transparent, which has led to a surfeit of information.
Barry Wernick, a Texas lawyer who ran for a state House seat in the Republican primary this year, filed an affidavit in the case saying he can do exactly the type of ballot-matching at issue.
“Simple visual comparisons of the Voter Roster, the Batch Report by Polling Location and the paper ballots … allow any person to find a voter’s ballot, resulting in a breach of voter privacy, without the voter’s prior knowledge or agreement,” Mr. Wernick said.
He said the ballots of three sitting state senators, a sitting U.S. congressman, eight current judges and dozens of other officials could be matched.
He calculated that 10.6% of Democratic and 4.6% of Republican voters could have their ballots from the March primary matched to their names.
He said county election officials could still make the connections if they shielded the information from the public by redacting it in releases.
“This means that the inherent flaw in Countywide Voting is that it can never provide for ballot secrecy,” he said.
Mr. Wernick said 17 other states use a similar countywide voting structure, in which ballots must be identified to be tailored to a specific precinct.
Mr. Adams said the implications of losing the secret ballot are severe, including intimidation and retaliation over how someone voted.
Indeed, that seems to have happened this year.
Current Revolt published a ballot of the chairman of the Texas Republican Party. The news outlet showed he voted for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary, even though he had publicly endorsed former President Donald Trump.
This week, Current Revolt reported that a state lawmaker had announced legislation to forbid people from trying to obtain information to connect voters with their ballots.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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