Election transparency may pose threat to ballot secrecy, Texas election official says

Who you vote for is supposed to be kept secret, but by accessing a combination of public, legally available records, finding someone's ballot may be getting easier.

Christina Adkins, election division director at the Texas Secretary of State's Office testified about the issue at last week’s Senate Committee on State Affairs meeting.

“As we've increased transparency, we’ve made this information easier to discover,” said Adkins.

Last month, an independent news site published what it said was the ballot for Matt Rinaldi, former chair of the Republican Party of Texas.

The ballot image was reportedly from the March 5th GOP primary and showed a vote cast for Ron DeSantis for president, despite DeSantis having dropped out of the race.

Rinaldi hasn't confirmed whether the ballot is his and didn’t return NBC 5’s request for comment.

Bob Stein, a political science professor at Rice University, says public access to ballots presents a violation of voter secrecy.

“Your ballot, which can be linked to your name, it can be done electronically, should never ever be accessible to anyone but the court and the election officials for verification,” said Stein

During the senate committee meeting, Adkins said an increase in transparency is causing ballot secrecy concerns, especially during elections with low voter turnout.

“Because of the granularity of our records, there is a possibility to discover or to find an individual’s ballot through process of elimination,” said Adkins.

Fixing the problem, she said, may take legislative action which likely won't happen before November's election.

A Texas House committee will hear testimony on ballot secrecy at its June 12 meeting.