- Oct 17, 2011
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The eyes of Texas were upon the ballots cast by several high-profile Texas politicians on Wednesday, after documents were leaked related to a stunning lawsuit accusing state election officials of failing to properly protect ballot secrecy. The leak included the purported ballot for the chairman of the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) — catching him in a lie about how he voted in the presidential primary.
From the suit:
Texans who vote by mail receive a consecutively-numbered paper ballot that preserves that secrecy. However, many Texans who vote in person, including Plaintiffs, have no choice but to use paper ballots that lack consecutive numbers. Instead, the paper ballots Plaintiffs have been required to utilize at the polls contain computer-generated randomly assigned unique identifier “ballot tracking” numbers, which do not comply with Texas law and, importantly, do not preserve the secrecy of Plaintiffs’ ballots, as described more fully herein.
The technology used by the affected counties does allow the use of consecutive numbers ... but these county election administrators have chosen not to do so, and the state officials are not forcing them to comply with state law, the complaint alleges...
To be clear, the voter’s name is not printed on the ballot, but data files obtainable through standard public records requests were able to be used to cross-reference a voter’s ID, the unique identifier ballot number, and the actual ballot.
A source familiar with the investigation behind the lawsuit told Mediaite that the plaintiffs’ research and legal team used the public election files to look up ballots for the plaintiffs and then multiple prominent Texas politicians, including 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)
Texas-based website Current Revolt published documents that were produced using the methodology deployed in the investigation for the lawsuit – specifically, Rinaldi’s ballot.
Xweet:
We have obtained a copy of Chairman Matt Rinaldi’s ballot from Super Tuesday that indicates he voted for Ron Desantis and not Donald Trump.
From the suit:
Texans who vote by mail receive a consecutively-numbered paper ballot that preserves that secrecy. However, many Texans who vote in person, including Plaintiffs, have no choice but to use paper ballots that lack consecutive numbers. Instead, the paper ballots Plaintiffs have been required to utilize at the polls contain computer-generated randomly assigned unique identifier “ballot tracking” numbers, which do not comply with Texas law and, importantly, do not preserve the secrecy of Plaintiffs’ ballots, as described more fully herein.
The technology used by the affected counties does allow the use of consecutive numbers ... but these county election administrators have chosen not to do so, and the state officials are not forcing them to comply with state law, the complaint alleges...
To be clear, the voter’s name is not printed on the ballot, but data files obtainable through standard public records requests were able to be used to cross-reference a voter’s ID, the unique identifier ballot number, and the actual ballot.
A source familiar with the investigation behind the lawsuit told Mediaite that the plaintiffs’ research and legal team used the public election files to look up ballots for the plaintiffs and then multiple prominent Texas politicians, including 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)
Texas-based website Current Revolt published documents that were produced using the methodology deployed in the investigation for the lawsuit – specifically, Rinaldi’s ballot.
Xweet:
We have obtained a copy of Chairman Matt Rinaldi’s ballot from Super Tuesday that indicates he voted for Ron Desantis and not Donald Trump.
