Dealing with election scrutiny, Texas prepares for Nov. 5 with paper ballots and strengthened safety

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In September, Hays County Elections Administrator Jennifer Doinoff watched as check ballots have been scanned whereas additionally fielding questions from a public observer attentively watching with a clipboard in hand.

The general public check is one in all many necessities and procedures native election officers and employees in Texas observe to make sure free and honest elections. Regardless of all assurances, election employees proceed to face elevated public scrutiny within the wake of former President Donald Trump’s misinformation marketing campaign following his loss in 2020.

This yr, Texas election officers are ready to tackle what some say could be the greatest menace to elections — extra misinformation — with an old-school device: paper ballots. Whether or not by hand or by making their alternatives on a touchscreen machine, most Texans will mark and forged paper ballots within the Nov. 5 election.

Solely six Texas counties may have in-person voters use direct-recording digital, or DRE, voting programs that don’t depend on paper ballots, in keeping with Secretary of State information mapped by the group Verified Voting. The group tracks voting tools and advocates for auditable voting programs. All Texas voting machines should produce a paper path by 2026 underneath a 2021 state legislation.

“The reason that I think legislators made this move towards hybrid systems is you always can check that paper ballot,” Doinoff mentioned.

Even in counties that may nonetheless use DREs, officers have to check voting machines and have safety measures in place. Right here’s extra about how Texas elections officers depend and preserve votes protected.

Most Texas counties already use paper ballots

A lot of the USA moved away from paper-based voting after the 2000 election, which raised considerations concerning the accuracy of vote counting machines in circumstances when punch-card voting machines didn’t all the time fully punch out and mark a voter’s choice.

To keep away from comparable fiascos, the federal authorities put aside $3 billion for brand spanking new voting machines and lots of states used that funding to purchase direct recording digital voting machines. Nevertheless, some laptop scientists started elevating considerations about vulnerabilities and the dearth of a paper path across the mid-2000s. Some digital voting machines have been hacked in managed research, however there may be no proof of profitable voting machine tampering in U.S. elections.

Paper-backed programs have made a comeback amongst rising cybersecurity considerations, ageing voting machines and modifications following the 2020 election, mentioned Mark Lindeman, Coverage and Technique Director of Verified Voting.

The bulk – 91% – of Individuals voted in jurisdictions with voter-verified paper ballots or paper information through the 2020 election, main a coalition of federal cybersecurity and election officers to name it the “the most secure in American history.” This yr, an estimated 98% of Individuals will vote in jurisdictions with paper ballots or DRE machines with Voter Verified Paper Audit Path, or VVPAT, printers that enable voters to assessment their poll decisions on paper earlier than recording their votes into reminiscence.

In Texas, lower than one % of Texans will vote in counties that also depend on DREs (with out VVPAT printers) for all in-person voters within the upcoming election, in comparison with over a 3rd in 2020, Lindeman mentioned.

“What makes the 2024 election fundamentally even more secure than the 2020 election is that almost everyone is voting on paper,” he mentioned. “It doesn’t mean that nothing can go wrong. It means that even if things go wrong, the problems can be corrected.”

This transition doesn’t imply voting machines are actually “foolproof,” however “paper ballots can cut through a lot of the noise,” and considerations about election hacking, Lindeman added.

“You know, folks can talk about foreign computer servers all they want, but the paper ballots stay in Texas. The paper ballots will be examined in Texas,” he mentioned.

For voters who could encounter quirks with voting machines, reminiscent of those who have led to previous mistaken stories of “vote switching,” paper ballots allow them to review and double check their ballot. Voters have the proper to stand up two further ballots to make corrections. The inaccurate ballots are spoiled and never counted.

“You don’t deposit that paper ballot into the tabulator until it reads your votes exactly the way that you want to,” Doinoff mentioned, urging voters to assessment their marked ballots.

How are voting tools and polling locations secured?

All voting programs and software program in Texas are licensed by the U.S. Election Help Fee and by the Texas Secretary of State’s workplace.

Permitted voting machines, together with tabulators, can’t have the aptitude to connect with the web — a safety towards hacking. Solely units often called ballot books which might be used to verify in voters at polling places can connect with the web to make sure an individual doesn’t vote twice. A county could solely use ballot books licensed by the secretary of state.

Texas voting machines additionally go via a number of assessments. Throughout logic and accuracy assessments just like the one Doinoff performed in September, election officers have a bunch of volunteers forged predetermined ballots on voting machines to check the electronically tallied outcomes with these tallied by hand. This public check, which was performed with native get together and authorities representatives and members of the general public, is finished to “make sure that the system is functioning as it should and there are no surprises in the software or anything,” Doinoff mentioned.

The voting machines are examined not less than twice earlier than every election, together with throughout a check open to the general public, and election officers ensure that the supply code of the software program within the voting programs has not been altered by evaluating it to the unique. One other check of voting machines is performed instantly after elections to verify nothing modified through the tabulation course of, Doinoff mentioned.

Voting tools and programs are additionally bodily secured. In Randall County, which switched to ballot-marking units in 2022, Election Administrator Shannon Lackey mentioned the ballot-scanning machines that learn votes earlier than dropping ballots into an connected field have two locks. One other padlock is added when the election decide or officer in command of the voting location transports the scanner and ballots again to her, she mentioned.

In Burnet County, one the few counties and not using a paper-based voting system for in-person voters, the pc that tallies votes recorded by voting machines is barely related to 2 printers, together with one which information each keystroke, mentioned Doug Ferguson, the county’s election administrator. This laptop and one other one used for mail-in ballots are saved in his workplace, which has a particular keypad lock on the door. There are additionally two cameras in his workplace and greater than a dozen across the elections workplace and warehouse. These voting programs are additionally examined, and ballot employees intently monitor the voting machines at polling places, Ferguson mentioned.

Earlier than a polling location opens for the primary day of early voting and Election Day, the election decide or officer overseeing the polling location should doc that the voting machines haven’t counted any voters or votes and examine machines for potential tampering, in keeping with the secretary of state’s workplace. Election judges should additionally verify and log the serial numbers of every machine.

After the polls shut every day, election judges make sure the variety of counted ballots matches the quantity of people that confirmed as much as vote. Voting machines are then shut down and locked to forestall every other votes from being forged.

When a polling location closes on Election Day, election employees and officers nonetheless have an extended checklist of necessities to observe. For instance, election officers at polling websites should print not less than three copies of the election outcomes from every machine. And election officers verify the information election judges in command of voting places should submit.

Ballot watchers — skilled representatives for a celebration, candidate or poll measure — can observe (with out disrupting) election and central counting station procedures. Counties with populations of greater than 100,000 folks should dwell stream video surveillance of central vote-counting stations and different locations the place voted ballots are saved.

What different election safeguards does Texas have?

Many counties use an digital machine to depend and tabulate votes. Texas requires all counties that use such machines to conduct a partial guide audit by counting a portion of paper ballots by hand to report a comparability of these outcomes with these tabulated by the machine.

The secretary of state’s workplace selects the precincts or polling places for a partial guide depend after which election officers tally by hand the votes for particular races from these places. The county clerk or elections administrator should start the audit inside 72 hours of the polls closing on Election Day and full the guide depend inside 21 days.

Within the few remaining counties which have voting machines that don’t use paper ballots, officers manually depend a portion of mail-in ballots for the audit.

The partial guide audits, which Texas has lengthy required after each election, are very labor intensive however essential, Lackey mentioned. The secretary of state’s workplace has additionally been piloting a risk-limiting audit program, which permits counties to enroll to conduct an audit of a higher pattern of ballots randomly chosen via statistics.

Audits and recounts like these may also help spot irregularities in ballots, like if a voter crossed out their choice as a substitute of effervescent it in by hand, whereas saving counties from the prices and errors that may come from having employees depend each single poll by hand.

“What you’re looking for is a sweet spot where computers do a lot of work for us very quickly, and then we check the computers because that’s what human beings are good at and human beings also can see things that software really can’t,” Lindeman of Verified Voting mentioned.

Different election safety measures underneath Texas legislation embrace the next:

• The secretary of state can ship election inspectors, or skilled state employees, to watch native elections.
• A peace officer should be current at a central counting station for the tabulation interval to make sure the safety of voted ballots.
• Ballots should be saved locked of their authentic container for 60 days post-election.

Federal legislation requires ballots with federal elections, reminiscent of for president and U.S. Congress, to be saved for 22 months.

Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson’s workplace mentioned this week that the state is “prepared for a secure election” and reminded Texans of those and different election safety measures earlier this week.

“Texas leads the way when it comes to election security, and I want voters to know our state and county officials are ready for the November election,” Nelson mentioned in a press release. “Many security protocols are new, and others have been around for decades, but Texans deserve to know the ways we are working to secure their votes.”

How widespread is election fraud?

As difficult as they’re, elections could by no means be good, however these layers of safeguards in place make election tampering and widespread fraud unlikely, in keeping with elections officers and safety specialists.

“We are human, we do make mistakes,” Lackey mentioned. “We make every possible effort to not have that happen. But anytime that we create a ballot, it is always seen by several people to proof it, to make sure everything is exactly right. We require a lot of from our poll workers.”

No proof of profitable hacking of voting machines in a U.S. election has been discovered, in keeping with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company.

A number of research, stories and courts additionally have discovered that voter impersonation and different types of fraud are uncommon, in keeping with the Brennan Heart for Justice, a nonpartisan legislation and coverage institute. Situations of alleged fraud have additionally in some circumstances turned out to be errors by elections directors or voters, in keeping with the middle.

And in Texas, audits by the secretary of state have discovered some points and “irregularities,” together with in Harris County, however they’ve not revealed widespread fraud and have not prompt that the problems would have induced the outcomes of current elections to alter.

Native election directors encourage voters to be sort with election employees however let their native election workplaces know if they’ve questions or considerations.

“Voters should feel confident and secure,” mentioned Jennifer Doinoff, the elections administrator for Hays County. “Texas has very good elections, and I know that there’s skepticism out there, but I would ask those folks to go to your election office and talk to your election officials and get involved in the process. I’ve never seen anybody that’s involved in the process walk away doubting it.”