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Shocking voter-fraud risk: Dallas County ballots allegedly accessible online
Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

Shocking voter-fraud risk: Dallas County ballots allegedly accessible online

'Not locked, encrypted, or watermarked in any way,' Texas House candidate warns.

Barry Wernick, a Republican running for Texas House District 108, reported Tuesday that he filed a complaint with the Texas secretary of state against the Dallas County Elections Department after he claimed he found his actual ballot posted online.

Wernick, endorsed by former President Donald Trump, shared the news on X, explaining how he made the shocking discovery.

'Irreparable damage may have already been done.'

According to Wernick, he went to the DCED's website to view his sample ballot and was redirected to the Clarity Elections portal.

Clarity Elections is an election night reporting portal that is 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.

Wernick shared a screenshot of Garcia's initials at the bottom of the ballot. He noted that the online ballot's markings were consistent with an actual ballot and not a sample.

The images of the online ballot were "not locked, encrypted, or watermarked in any way," Wernick added.

He called for the DCED to immediately take the ballots offline.

"Because there is no law against publishing an actual mail-in ballot, anyone with access to a registered voter's legal first name and last name and the same voter's birth date could easily and legally print out or digitally manipulate that voter's ballot," he continued. "Then that person could illegally and potentially surreptitiously inject it into the system thereby disenfranchising and diluting my vote, in this instance, and any other registered voter's vote without getting caught."

Wernick added, "Irreparable damage may have already been done. But enjoining Dallas County Elections Department from publishing this information could mitigate any future potential damage to our election system."

Blaze News replicated the process Wernick used to access his ballot by using another Texas voter's information. The results were identical: The ballot displayed online lacked a "sample" watermark, included timing marks, and featured Garcia's initials at the bottom, just like Wernick's.

Rick Weible, who appeared in Dinesh D'Souza's documentary "Vindicating Trump" and has repeatedly attempted to expose the vulnerabilities of the Election Systems & Software accumulator, said, "This ballot can be printed and used for swaps and injections ... no timing marks or initials should be on any sample ballot."

In a statement to Blaze News, the Texas secretary of state said, “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 added.

The Dallas County Elections Department and SOE Software did not respond to a request for comment.

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Candace Hathaway

Candace Hathaway

Candace Hathaway is a staff writer for Blaze News.
@candace_phx →