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Randall County approves software to redact and verify scanned ballots, citing voter privacy concerns
Summary
Randall County Commissioners on a 5-0 vote approved purchasing two election-software modules — a ballot redactor and ballot verifier — through the Tarrant County cooperative after election staff described repeated public-record requests that could identify how individual voters voted.
Randall County Commissioners Court on a 5-0 vote approved buying two software modules to process and redact scanned ballots, county staff said, after lengthy discussion about public-records requests that have, at times, allowed outsiders to identify how individual voters cast ballots.
County Elections Administrator Shannon (first name not provided) told the court the software would both speed requests and protect voter secrecy. "Voter secrecy is the utmost importance to me," Shannon said, adding that current manual redaction of images is time-consuming: staff were working in the "second week of redacting all of these different pieces from the 27,000 ballots that were cast during that election." She said the proposed system would reduce that work dramatically: "This will do that in 2 to 3 days 2 to 3 minutes."
Shannon said the modules are offered through a cooperative…
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