Tarrant County is making it easier for people to check their work on elections.
A new platform produced by civic technology company Civera will allow people to search online for images of ballots, and compare them to the voter record tabulated by the county. Personally identifiable information will be redacted, but users will be able to see the images of all the ballots cast in any particular race they chose.
Tarrant County is the second jurisdiction in the United States and first in Texas to use this particular platform.
Its also been used in Ada County, Idaho, and Civera is in talks to set up this system in Denton County and Jim Wells County, CEO Adam Friedman told reporters Friday.
Recently passed state laws require counties to make the images of individual ballots publicly available, however, Tarrant County was only able to post a single data file with thousands of images of ballots.
Residents can request images of ballots from individual precincts or races, however, the records request process can take up to two weeks to complete.
With the ballot verifying platform , people can easily search for ballot images by contest and precinct, and get a breakdown of the results.
The platform also verifies that ballots were tabulated correctly by taking the county’s raw tabulation data, and double checking the results.
It’s an effort to be more transparent and give people the ability to “audit this information from your own couch if that’s what you feel like,” said county election administrator Clint Ludwig during a demonstration on Friday.
Currently the dashboard only has information from the March 5 primary election, but more elections will be added going forward, Ludwig said.
“We’re converting what people consider a black box into a glass box,” Friedman said.
Ballot images for the November election won’t be available until after the results have been canvased and certified by county election officials.
Ballot images could be used to identify individual voters in smaller jurisdictions , according to reporting by Vote Beat and the Texas Tribune.
This has raised concern among advocates about voter privacy and the potential for intimidation.
A coalition of groups including the League of Women Voters and American Oversight sent a letter to the Justice Department in June to protect voter privacy.
However, Ludwig said the county is working to redact voter information in smaller precincts in order to protect privacy.
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