“It’s very different if [an online tool] comes from an independent group like True the Vote that obviously has certain political leanings, and the information they provide is through a lens,” Seyler says, as opposed to “something like [Ballot Verifier], which is accessible to everyone and truly transparent.” The data, according to the team, is also private. “There is nothing on this ballot paper except the individual markings, [nothing] that would tie it to a particular voter,” Tripple said. “Voting is completely private.”
Still, some election experts have raised concerns that systems like Ballot Verifier may pose a risk to voter privacy, particularly in small precincts or in cases where voters leave notes on ballots that could identify them.
“Although there are clear transparency benefits to releasing ballots and ballot images, releasing these records comes with tradeoffs,” researchers at the Bipartisan Policy Center wrote in August. “Voters’ privacy could be at risk and vote buying becomes possible if ballot secrecy is breached – an extreme, although less likely, potential consequence of publishing ballot images.”
There have also been some previous efforts to give voters access to ballot images, such as in Pueblo County in Colorado in 2021, but those efforts were not as comprehensive or technically sophisticated as Ballot Verifier.
While Tripple and Seyler tried to think of a better solution, Idaho used a tool called ElectionStats to give voters access to election results statistics. This tool was developed by Civera Software, a citizen technology company that eventually worked with Ada County election officials to develop the new Ballot Verifier tool.
And even before the system went live, Tripple invited O’Donnell and other skeptics to be among the first to test it.
“I think it’s really good. It’s more than I thought, because now when we request our images, all we get is a data dump with files,” O’Donnell tells WIRED, adding that the Telegram group has responded positively to the launch of Ballot Verifier .
WIRED also tested the Ballot Verifier tool, examining specific precincts and races, filtering votes by type (absentee, absentee, etc.) and finding that the system worked smoothly, instantly displaying images of every ballot cast.
US elections have never been more secure, and the 2020 election was declared the “safest” by Trump’s own officials. But many people still believe in baseless election conspiracies, and rolling out this tool in one county in one state won’t necessarily change that overnight. In fact, a review of O’Donnell’s 400-person Telegram channel by WIRED this week shows that many members of the election integrity group still regularly share widely debunked conspiracies about voting.
Adam Friedman, the founder of Civera, believes part of the reason for this is a lack of transparency, which Ballot Verifier can help address.
“Much of the conspiracy theories, divisiveness, toxic rhetoric, and mistrust surrounding elections in America come from people not being able to see enough and perceiving voting as a black box experience,” Friedman says. “Ballot Verifier is really a way to turn a black box into a glass box.”