Dallas County appears to quietly modify online ‘sample’ ballots after concerns of voter-fraud risk
On Thursday evening, the Dallas County Elections Department seemingly made quiet modifications to online sample ballots following allegations that the downloadable PDFs were, in fact, actual voter ballots.
Barry Wernick, a Republican running for Texas House District 108, filed a complaint with the Texas secretary of state on Tuesday after he claimed he discovered his actual ballot was posted online, Blaze News previously reported. He stated that anyone with a Dallas County voter’s first and last name and date of birth could pull up a downloadable, printable ballot.
‘Not locked, encrypted, or watermarked in any way.’
Wernick explained that when trying to view his sample ballot on the DCED’s website, he was redirected to Clarity Elections, an election night reporting portal operated by SOE Software.
“After clicking on the link & being transferred to the Clarity Elections portal, instead of seeing a sample ballot, I viewed a downloadable & printable .pdf file of my actual die-cut mail-in ballot with a colored stamp of the initials (HG) of Election Administrator Heider Garcia,” Wernick stated.
A screenshot of Wernick’s supposed sample ballot featured Garcia’s initials at the bottom corner and time marks in the margins. He noted that the ballot was “not locked, encrypted, or watermarked in any way.”
Wernick warned that someone could “easily and legally print out or digitally manipulate that voter’s ballot” and then “illegally and potentially surreptitiously inject it into the system thereby disenfranchising and diluting” voters.
On Thursday morning, Blaze News replicated Wernick’s process to access his ballot by using the information of another Texas voter, a Blaze Media employee who lives in Dallas County, producing identical results. The online ballot did not have a “sample” watermark; it included timing marks and featured Garcia’s signed initials, just like Wernick’s.
However, Blaze News repeated the process on Thursday evening, yielding a different result. This time, the Texas voter’s ballot included a “sample” watermark and did not have any signed initials at the bottom.
Before Thursday evening:
Image Source: Blaze News
After Thursday evening:
Image Source: Blaze News
The DCED did not respond to requests for comment.
The Texas secretary of state told Blaze News, “I cannot speak to any formal election complaints because that information is considered private.”
“I can point out that printing a sample ballot does not provide a means for it to be inserted into the election process as there are checks for ballots both for in-person voting and voting by mail. There is not a way for voters to use a sample ballot in place of a regular ballot,” the secretary of state stated.
SOE Software President Jonathan Brill told Blaze News, “I am only aware of this matter from your email, and I haven’t directly connected with the Dallas County Elections.”
“I can tell you, however, that our software is not built for, nor does it have anything to do with voted ballots whatsoever, including tabulation,” Brill continued. “Rather, we created and host Dallas County Election’s website (including showing SAMPLE ballots) and then facilitate the reporting of results on Election Night. Said more simply, we have nothing to do with live ballots. Our system only presents sample ballots.”
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