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Resident asks Collin County to adopt hand-marked paper ballots, citing study on ballot-marking devices
Summary
A member of the public urged the court to replace ballot-marking devices with hand-marked paper ballots for upcoming elections, citing a study about low error-detection rates by voters using BMDs.
Chuck Reynolds addressed the Collin County Commissioners Court during the public comment period and asked the court to adopt hand-marked paper ballots for the November election and to phase out ballot-marking devices (BMDs).
Reynolds cited a 2019 Michigan study with 241 voters that he said found only 7% of voters detected injected errors in ballots produced by BMDs; adding signage produced almost no improvement and a scripted verbal prompt raised detection to about 19%. He said those results demonstrate a “poor security” posture for electronic collection equipment and argued Collin County should return to hand-marked paper ballots.
Reynolds asked the court to “outline a plan, and then implement and mark paper ballots for the November” election and to remove BMDs for the 2025 ballots. He framed the request as a security measure and criticized the human-factors design of BMDs.
The court received the comment under the public-comment portion of the meeting; no formal action was taken in response during the session.
