Facing election scrutiny, Texas prepares for Nov. 5 with paper ballots and strengthened security

Hays County elections administrator Jennifer Doinoff assists people testing polling equipment at the Hays County election office on Sept. 18, 2024. (Credit: Lorianne Willett/The Texas Tribune)

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In September, Hays County Elections Administrator Jennifer Doinoff watched as test ballots were scanned while also fielding questions from a public observer attentively watching with a clipboard in hand.

The public test is one of many requirements and procedures local election officials and workers in Texas follow to ensure free and fair elections. Despite all assurances, election workers continue to face increased public scrutiny in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s misinformation campaign following his loss in 2020.

This year, Texas election officials are prepared to take on what some say may be the biggest threat to elections — more misinformation — with an old-school tool: paper ballots. Whether by hand or by making their selections on a touchscreen machine, most Texans will mark and cast paper ballots in the Nov. 5 election.

Only six Texas counties will have in-person voters at the polls use direct-recording electronic, or DRE, voting systems that do not rely on paper ballots, according to Secretary of State data mapped by the group Verified Voting. The organization tracks voting equipment and advocates for auditable voting systems. In three of these six counties, in-person voters either mark a paper ballot by hand or use a DRE voting machine. However, some additional counties use DRE machines only for curbside voters, who cannot enter polls without assistance or injuring their health. All Texas voting machines must produce a paper trail by 2026 under a 2021 state law.

“The reason that I think legislators made this move towards hybrid systems is you always can check that paper ballot,” Doinoff said.

Even in counties that will still use DREs, officials have to test voting machines and have security measures in place. Here’s more about how Texas elections officials count and keep votes safe.

Most Texas counties already use paper ballots

Much of the United States moved away from paper-based voting after the 2000 election, which raised concerns about the accuracy of vote counting machines in cases when punch-card voting machines didn’t always completely punch out and mark a voter’s selection.

To avoid similar fiascos, the federal government set aside $3 billion for new voting machines and many states used that funding to buy direct recording electronic voting machines. However, some computer scientists began raising concerns about vulnerabilities and the lack of a paper trail around the mid-2000s. Some electronic voting machines have been hacked in controlled studies, but there is no evidence of successful voting machine tampering in U.S. elections.

Paper-backed systems have made a comeback among growing cybersecurity concerns, aging voting machines and changes following the 2020 election, said Mark Lindeman, Policy and Strategy Director of Verified Voting.

Heider Garcia, election administrator for the Dallas County Elections Department, demonstrates how to cast a ballot during a public verification test of the voting system at the Dallas County Elections Department building in Dallas on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. The test allows participants to validate the voting process by using ballots containing the same races and proportions as the upcoming elections in November. (Credit: Desiree Rios for The Texas Tribune)

The majority – 91% – of Americans voted in jurisdictions with voter-verified paper ballots or paper records during the 2020 election, leading a coalition of federal cybersecurity and election officials to call it the “the most secure in American history.” This year, an estimated 98% of Americans will vote in jurisdictions with paper ballots or DRE machines with Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail, or VVPAT, printers that allow voters to review their ballot choices on paper before recording their votes into memory.

In Texas, less than one percent of Texans will vote in counties that still rely on DREs (without VVPAT printers) for all in-person voters in the upcoming election, compared to over a third in 2020, Lindeman said.

“What makes the 2024 election fundamentally even more secure than the 2020 election is that almost everyone is voting on paper,” he said. “It doesn't mean that nothing can go wrong. It means that even if things go wrong, the problems can be corrected.”

This transition doesn’t mean voting machines are now “foolproof,” but “paper ballots can cut through a lot of the noise,” and concerns about election hacking, Lindeman added.

“You know, folks can talk about foreign computer servers all they want, but the paper ballots stay in Texas. The paper ballots will be examined in Texas,” he said.

For voters who may encounter quirks with voting machines, such as those that have led to past mistaken reports of “vote switching," paper ballots allow them to review and double check their ballot. Voters have the right to get up two additional ballots to make corrections. The incorrect ballots are spoiled and not counted.

“You don't deposit that paper ballot into the tabulator until it reads your votes exactly the way that you want to,” Doinoff said, urging voters to review their marked ballots.

How are voting equipment and polling places secured?

All voting systems and software in Texas are certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and by the Texas Secretary of State’s office.

Approved voting machines, including tabulators, cannot have the capability to connect to the internet — a protection against hacking. Only devices known as poll books that are used to check in voters at polling locations can connect to the internet to ensure a person does not vote twice. A county may only use poll books certified by the secretary of state.

Texas voting machines also go through multiple tests. During logic and accuracy tests like the one Doinoff conducted in September, election officials have a group of volunteers cast predetermined ballots on voting machines to compare the electronically tallied results with those tallied by hand. This public test, which was conducted with local party and government representatives and members of the public, is done to “make sure that the system is functioning as it should and there are no surprises in the software or anything,” Doinoff said.

The voting machines are tested at least twice before each election, including during a test open to the public, and election officials make sure the source code of the software in the voting systems has not been altered by comparing it to the original. Another test of voting machines is conducted immediately after elections to make sure nothing changed during the tabulation process, Doinoff said.

People test the polling equipment at the Hays County election office on Sept. 18, 2024. (Credit: Lorianne Willett/The Texas Tribune)

Voting equipment and systems are also physically secured. In Randall County, which switched to ballot-marking devices in 2022, Election Administrator Shannon Lackey said the ballot-scanning machines that read votes before dropping ballots into an attached box have two locks. Another padlock is added when the election judge or officer in charge of the voting location transports the scanner and ballots back to her, she said.

In Burnet County, one the few counties without a paper-based voting system for in-person voters, the computer that tallies votes recorded by voting machines is only connected to two printers, including one that records every keystroke, said Doug Ferguson, the county’s election administrator. This computer and another one used for mail-in ballots are kept in his office, which has a special keypad lock on the door. There are also two cameras in his office and more than a dozen around the elections office and warehouse. These voting systems are also tested, and poll workers closely monitor the voting machines at polling locations, Ferguson said.

Before a polling location opens for the first day of early voting and Election Day, the election judge or officer overseeing the polling location must document that the voting machines have not counted any voters or votes and inspect machines for possible tampering, according to the secretary of state’s office. Election judges must also check and log the serial numbers of each machine.

After the polls close each day, election judges ensure the number of counted ballots matches the number of people who showed up to vote. Voting machines are then shut down and locked to prevent any other votes from being cast.

When a polling location closes on Election Day, election workers and officials still have a long list of requirements to follow. For example, election officers at polling sites must print at least three copies of the election results from each machine. And election officials check the records election judges in charge of voting locations must submit.

Poll watchers — trained representatives for a party, candidate or ballot measure — can observe (without disrupting) election and central counting station procedures. Counties with populations of more than 100,000 people must live stream video surveillance of central vote-counting stations and other places where voted ballots are stored.

What other election safeguards does Texas have?

Many counties use an electronic machine to count and tabulate votes. Texas requires all counties that use such machines to conduct a partial manual audit by counting a portion of paper ballots by hand to report a comparison of those results with those tabulated by the machine.

The secretary of state’s office selects the precincts or polling locations for a partial manual count and then election officials tally by hand the votes for specific races from those locations. The county clerk or elections administrator must begin the audit within 72 hours of the polls closing on Election Day and complete the manual count within 21 days.

In the few remaining counties that have voting machines that do not use paper ballots, officials manually count a portion of mail-in ballots for the audit.

The partial manual audits, which Texas has long required after every election, are very labor intensive but important, Lackey said. The secretary of state’s office has also been piloting a risk-limiting audit program, which allows counties to sign up to conduct an audit of a greater sample of ballots randomly selected through statistics.

Audits and recounts like these can help spot irregularities in ballots, like if a voter crossed out their selection instead of bubbling it in by hand, while saving counties from the costs and errors that can come from having workers count every single ballot by hand.

Testing papers from the polling equipment at the Hays County Elections Office on Sept. 18, 2024. (Credit: Lorianne Willett/The Texas Tribune)

“What you're looking for is a sweet spot where computers do a lot of work for us very quickly, and then we check the computers because that’s what human beings are good at and human beings also can see things that software really can't,” Lindeman of Verified Voting said.

Other election security measures under Texas law include the following:

• The secretary of state can send election inspectors, or trained state workers, to observe local elections.
• A peace officer must be present at a central counting station for the tabulation period to ensure the security of voted ballots.
• Ballots must be kept locked in their original container for 60 days post-election.

Federal law requires ballots with federal elections, such as for president and U.S. Congress, to be kept for 22 months.

Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson’s office said this week that the state is “prepared for a secure election” and reminded Texans of these and other election security measures earlier this week.

“Texas leads the way when it comes to election security, and I want voters to know our state and county officials are ready for the November election,” Nelson said in a statement. “Many security protocols are new, and others have been around for decades, but Texans deserve to know the ways we are working to secure their votes.”

How common is election fraud?

As complicated as they are, elections may never be perfect, but these layers of safeguards in place make election tampering and widespread fraud unlikely, according to elections officials and security experts.

“We are human, we do make mistakes,” Lackey said. “We make every possible effort to not have that happen. But anytime that we create a ballot, it is always seen by several people to proof it, to make sure everything is exactly right. We require a lot of from our poll workers.”

No evidence of successful hacking of voting machines in a U.S. election has been found, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Several studies, reports and courts also have found that voter impersonation and other forms of fraud are rare, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute. Instances of alleged fraud have also in some cases turned out to be mistakes by elections administrators or voters, according to the center.

And in Texas, audits by the secretary of state have found some issues and “irregularities,” including in Harris County, but they have not revealed widespread fraud and have not suggested that the issues would have caused the outcomes of recent elections to change.

Local election administrators encourage voters to be kind with election workers but let their local election offices know if they have questions or concerns.

“Voters should feel confident and secure,” said Jennifer Doinoff, the elections administrator for Hays County. “Texas has very good elections, and I know that there's skepticism out there, but I would ask those folks to go to your election office and talk to your election officials and get involved in the process. I've never seen anybody that's involved in the process walk away doubting it.”

Correction, Oct. 23 at 9:15 a.m.: This story has been updated to clarify the number of counties that do not use paper ballots for all in-person voters at the polls.

ExpressVote voting machines at a public verification test of the voting system at the Dallas County Elections Department building in Dallas on Sept. 20, 2024. (Credit: Desiree Rios for The Texas Tribune)