Stunning Lawsuit Accuses Texas Election Officials of Failing to Protect Ballot Secrecy — And Now the Texas GOP Chair’s Ballot Has Been Leaked

Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman by means of AP.

The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
The entire livelong day.
The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
You can’t get away.
Don’t assume that you could get away them
At night or early in the morn —
The Eyes of Texas are upon you
Til Gabriel blows his horn.

– “The Eyes of Texas,” faculty spirit tune of The University of Texas at Austin

The eyes of Texas were upon the ballots solid by means of a few high-profile Texas politicians on Wednesday, after paperwork had been leaked associated to a stunning lawsuit accusing state election officers of failing to correctly offer protection to ballot secrecy. The leak incorporated the purported pollfor the chairman of the Republican Celebration of Texas (RPT) — catching him in a lie about how he voted in the presidential primary.

The seventy seven-page criticism was filed via an elections security researcher who lives in Williamson County, Texas and 4 different Texas voters, two of whom also are living in Williamson County, one from Bell County, and one from Llano County. Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson, Director of the Division of Elections Christina Adkins, and the county election directors for Williamson, Bell, and Llano Counties are named as defendants, accused of “willful and systematic put out of your mind of election regulations” that put in danger the secrecy of potentially thousands and thousands of ballots solid by way of Texans in latest elections.

The criticism describes the plaintiffs as all “consistent voters” who “voted in the most contemporary Texas elections in November 2023 and March 2024,” but either do not qualify to vote through mail below Texas legislation or prefer to vote in particular person.

This is an issue, the criticism explains, for the reason that state has an passion in “fighting, detecting, and punishing fraud and making certain the integrity of Texas elections,” as enshrined within the Texas Constitution and Texas Election Code, but the way in which some counties deal with in-individual voters fails to offer protection to ballot secrecy:

Texans who vote by means of mail receive a consecutively-numbered paper ballot that preserves that secrecy. Alternatively, many Texans who vote in particular person, including Plaintiffs, haven’t any possibility however to make use of paper ballots that lack consecutive numbers. Instead, the paper ballots Plaintiffs had been required to utilize at the polls incorporate pc-generated randomly assigned distinctive identifier “ballot tracking” numbers, which don’t agree to Texas regulation and, importantly, don’t protect the secrecy of Plaintiffs’ ballots, as described extra fully herein. Because of this, Plaintiffs are relegated to a class of in-individual voters whose votes are neither guaranteed secrecy nor secure from being undermined, diluted and debased by using lawlessness and fraud.

A substantial section of the criticism important points the more than a few know-how for the digital ballot books, digital vote casting machines, and instrument used within the affected counties, and how “distinctive identifier ballot numbers” are printed on every in-particular person pollsolid therein, leading to an exact pollbeing traceable again to the true title of the voter who solid it.

All Texas counties use electronic vote casting machines that generate printed ballots to create an “auditable paper path” and in the counties at problem in this lawsuit, the unique identifier ballot number is generated and assigned to every voter after they bodily arrive at the balloting region and test in, and then printed on the voter’s precise paper ballot sooner than the pollis placed into the pollscanner.

The know-how used by the affected counties does permit using consecutive numbers that will not be generated anew for each voter and not traceable back to them, however these county election directors have chosen now not to do so, and the state officials usually are not forcing them to comply with state law, the grievance alleges, despite there being “no technical or logistical barriers on the County Defendants imposing consecutive numbering of ballots” as a substitute of the use of these “unlawful and unconstitutional” uniquely assigned numbers.

Secretary of State Nelson is highlighted for specific culpability for an email she sent in 2019 to county clerks and election administrators pronouncing that consecutively numbered paper ballots have been now not obligatory, which the grievance assaults as being “in full contravention” of the Texas Election Code and “violating Plaintiffs’ due process rights to take part in the regulation-making process of consultant government” with this “disparate, unequal treatment between the classes of in-individual and by way of-mail voters.”

To be clear, the voter’s identify is no longer printed on the ballot, however data files obtainable via same old public information requests have been able to be used to cross-reference a voter’s ID, the unique identifier ballot number, and the real ballot.

A supply accustomed to the investigation at the back of the lawsuit instructed Mediaite that the plaintiffs’ research and felony staff used the public election files to appear up ballots for the plaintiffs after which more than one prominent Texas politicians, together with Gov. Greg Abbott (R), the Williamson County Sheriff, county judges, county commissioners, and Republican Party of Texas (RPT) chair and State Rep. Matt Rinaldi (R), shown above in a verbal altercation with some other Texas GOP Home colleague. These public officials were chosen for example the ease of having access to the election data recordsdata without focused on non-public citizens, the supply explained.

The real approach used to move-reference the distinctive identifier ballot numbers with the voter names and the implications from individual ballots have been in the beginning filed in redacted form with the complaint (a redacted presentation via a Texas A&M University laptop scientist concerning the methodology available for obtain right here), in keeping with our supply. Rumors were flying round Texas political circles in latest weeks concerning the manner talked about in the lawsuit and whether or not or now not Texans’ ballots were truly vulnerable to publicity.

And then on Wednesday, Texas-based web page Present Riot revealed paperwork that had been produced using the methodology deployed in the investigation for the lawsuit – namely, Rinaldi’s ballot.

Rinaldi voted in particular person in Dallas County for the Texas GOP presidential major in March. He had publicly endorsed former President Donald Trump, mentioned he voted for him, and even persevered to insist previous this week that he had forged his vote for Trump.

That’s now not what the ballot and solid vote record photography (beneath) express. Instead, Rinaldi allegedly voted for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), whose marketing campaign collapsed in an embarrassing sputter in Iowa months earlier.

Ballot allegedly solid through Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi

Alleged Cast Vote Record (CVR) for Matt Rinaldi.

Journalists with Current Riot “independently validated the precinct and reporting team data, all exhibiting a fit” between the above ballot and Rinaldi’s identification information. As their record stated, the vulnerability created with the aid of the distinctive ballot numbers exists in “about 90% of Texas counties,” together with the entire biggest ones: Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, and Travis, the site of the state capital Austin.

A Texas information scientist, who asked to remain anonymous with a purpose to speak freely due to the specter of political reprisals which are already swirling around the Lone Celebrity State, described the methodology to Mediaite for matching the unique identifier ballot numbers with voter names. It was somewhat extra complicated than just pasting textual content from a overseas language into Google Translate, he mentioned, requiring only a “easy” components in Microsoft Excel that is likely one of the built-in functions and “anyone can learn to do with a common Google search.”

The data scientist added that he was individually able to replicate this unveiling of exact ballots tied to real voter names the usage of information available through public data requests, tying the precise numbers on the ballots to voter ID files, and matched with precinct region data and timestamps.

Ballot confidentiality might doubtlessly have an excellent decrease degree of protection in small, rural counties, the info scientist explained, as a result of information of Excel formulation or decryption of the voter numbers just isn’t wanted where there are so few voters that it’s simple to match the timestamp of when a voter quantity was assigned at check-in to the timestamp on a pollbeing cast minutes later.

Even more troubling, the info scientist talked about more than one extra methods for the use of the public election knowledge to match names to ballots, which I’m refraining from describing here in detail, that have been even more straightforward and didn’t require any Excel experience.

The Texas GOP’s basic guidance put out a remark calling the story “absurd” and pointing out that she had urged Rinaldi to not remark, but, as many commenters pointed out, there wasn’t an actual denial in her observation, only a vague threat that the birthday celebration would “investigate possible civil and legal acts including defamation.”

Current Rise up’s Tony Ortiz answered on The Platform Formerly Referred to as Twitter, writing there used to be a public lawsuit but “[t]he RPT has by no means commented or cared about this swimsuit until nowadays,” and entreated the birthday celebration to enroll in the efforts to “work in opposition to securing our elections” instead of “lashing out at individuals who have recognized clear problems and vulnerabilities” within the gadget.

“Threatening to sue the journalist who uncovered our election vulnerabilities as an alternative of recognizing it’s a subject and committing to fixing it in point of fact says rather a lot about the present state of the Republican Birthday Celebration of Texas,” Ortiz added.

“The harms Plaintiffs have suffered are actual, not theoretical, and can proceed to happen at every future referred to as election unless and except this Court orders Defendants to comply with the law,” the complaint states earlier than soliciting for declaratory judgment that the defendant officers’ movements violated their rights underneath the Equal Safety and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and Free Speech clause of the First Modification, an injunction ordering them to forestall the usage of the “computerized random unique identifier tracking and numbering of ballots that don’t protect the secrecy of Plaintiffs’ ballots” and the expertise tool and devices that “don’t protect the secrecy of Plaintiffs’ ballots,” and attorneys’ charges and charges.

With the present expertise utilized by the counties being in location for a couple of years, and through so many counties overlaying any such massive phase of the Texas inhabitants, there are potentially tens of millions of voters’ ballots which are prone to exposure. Taking into consideration the divisive nature  of our present political local weather — that all too continuously devolves into harassment, intimidation, and even precise violence — this has created a real and terrifying risk for a lot of Texans. The complaint tells how this concern led the plaintiffs to forego balloting in latest native elections that befell after they discovered about this vulnerability with the in-individual ballots.

One big question looming in the market is who precisely knew about this vulnerability prior to the lawsuit used to be filed, and if they’ve exploited it to intimidate or coerce somebody? Furthermore, except this vulnerability is mounted and the state executive requires the counties to make use of the legally-mandated and steady consecutive ballot numbering, the data recordsdata are a tempting risk for hackers and other cybersecurity issues — exacerbated with the aid of the collection of all this information in one principal database on the state level.

These county and state election information files are public report beneath Texas legislation. The 89th Texas legislative session does no longer kick off except January 2025, an extreme period of time to depart Texans’ voting data compromised. Texans who wish to keep their November ballots exclusive could soon be urging Abbott to call a different session to handle this downside.

Pressley v. Nelson lawsuit by means of Sarah Rumpf on Scribd

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