“Experts in election integrity have warned this is the case for millions of Texas voters, and Current Revolt has obtained the wake-up call that Texans have to see to believe:”
“The official ballot cast by Republican Party of Texas (RPT) Chairman Matt Rinaldi on Super Tuesday 2024:“
“The ballot shows Rinaldi secretly voted for Ron DeSantis after publicly endorsing Donald Trump.“
“Rinaldi was challenged this week on whether he genuinely supported President Trump, to which he replied that he “voted for Trump in March.”“
“However, Current Revolt has acquired a copy of Matt Rinaldi’s ballot showing he voted for Ron DeSantis, despite DeSantis having dropped out of the race weeks before early voting began.“
(Texas Tribune)—“Texas’ efforts to make elections more transparent allows the public — in limited instances — to pierce the anonymity of the ballot and find out how people voted, undermining the secrecy essential to free elections.
The choices voters make in the private voting booth can later be identified in some cases using public, legally available records, a review by Votebeat and The Texas Tribune found.
Since 2020, requests for such records have skyrocketed, fueled by unsubstantiated concerns about widespread voter fraud, and Texas lawmakers have supported changes to make election records easier to access soon after elections.
“What bothers me is that people cannot vote in secret in the United States,” said Williamson County District Attorney Shawn Dick about the potential lapses in ballot secrecy. “If people’s ballots don’t remain anonymous, that’s a huge affront to our system of government and our system of elections.””
(CEO)—After my column the other day discussing how Texas residents statewide were receiving threatening letters. In which an unknown source was claiming to be a conservative group. Warning if the recipient didn’t vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming election, they would face repercussions from Trump himself. Seeing as mine was only the second article to cover the story, it gained some decent attention. But at the same time, it raised some serious questions, which I was also asking myself. Including, in Texas is the information publicly available to identify how specific residents vote?
So after doing some research, referenced by the quoted reports above. It is not only feasible to see who a Texas individual voted for, but the actual image of their ballot is also attainable. How is this remotely plausible you ask? Well after Republicans intentionally lied about rampant voter fraud occurring in the 2020 Presidential Election. Many GOP-led States decided to change their election laws for so-called “transparency” purposes. However from the evidence presented above they went way beyond their objective. Or could this have been the outcome they were hoping for all along?
In a state like Texas where the Republican leadership has a checkered history of corruption. Including Governor Greg Abbott, Lt Governor Dan Patrick (Not the Sports Talkshow Host), and Attorney General Ken Paxton the top three Republican officials in all of Texas. As they say, “A fish rots from the head down” and the same thing can be said for Texas. So it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where Texas Republicans could use this voter-identifying information for some other nefarious purposes. Since figuratively the state judge, jury, and executioner are all in cahoots.
Voter intimidation is already a widespread problem in Texas. In theory, those threatening letters sent to Texas voters, claiming Trump would be notified if they didn’t vote for him. This could conceivably happen, if failure to protect personal voting data, isn’t immediately resolved. This is just another disturbing example of the erosion of our democratic processes. For which the lack of response from state officials speaks volumes about their levels of concern. Allowing doubt to creep in about the overall security of the Texas Electoral Operations. Is another threat to our democracy that Republicans are responsible for. Whether ignorance or complicity is the underlying motive behind this inadequate response, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Free and fair elections are a requirement for our democracy to survive. So damaging revelations like this one should be setting off alarm bells throughout the country. These are blatant legal loopholes created by the GOP. So if Republicans are purposefully ignoring them for future political gains, the corruption is far worse than we already understood. The fact that I am once again the only other outlet amplifying this story. It’s an ominous reminder of the media’s neglect. Knowledge is power and I say it often but sadly it works both ways. When you have it you can fight back against dishonest forces trying to manipulate the public narrative. However now in Texas, if your voting record falls into the wrong hands. That kind of knowledge can be used as a weapon against you. Texas injustice indeed!!
Previous Column on Threatening Letters To Texas Residents
Click the link below for the Texas Tribune article quoted in this column
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/29/texas-ballot-compromised-election-security-transparency/
Click the link below for the Current Revolt article quoted in this column
https://www.currentrevolt.com/p/exclusive-hacked-ballot-proves-texas
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