Security researchers say rapid advances in artificial intelligence are making it more critical to address a flaw in Georgia’s voting equipment that can allow voters to be matched to their ballots after they have been cast.
The system’s vulnerability has been drawing increased attention, with election security advocates criticizing state election officials for failing to fix it before the November elections. Georgia election officials say they have taken steps to address the potential harm, but some advocates say the state is not going far enough.
The vulnerability does not allow votes to be changed or cast doubt on election results, but it could let someone see how others voted. That is important because ballot secrecy is a fundamental right under the state constitution and violations could create an opening for legal challenges.
While the flaw has been known for a few years, the widespread adoption of AI tools and the blistering pace of its sophistication have election security experts raising alarms.
This is “a bit of a wake-up call because it illustrates how much more easily vulnerabilities can be exploited now that AI can do all of the technical work for you,” said J. Alex Halderman, a voting technology specialist at the University of Michigan who was part of the team that exposed the flaw.
Other jurisdictions across the country use the same voting equipment made by Dominion Voting Systems, a company that has since been sold and renamed Liberty Vote. But many have applied a software update to fix the flaw, and some other states do not allow the public release of records that are needed to exploit it, said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group focused on election technology.
Georgia, a presidential battleground with one of the nation’s most closely watched U.S. Senate races this year, is the only place where the system is used statewide. Lindeman said that, combined with an open records law that has allowed access to key documents, creates a “perfect storm.”
“It’s really embarrassing that this is still a possibility,” Lindeman said.
How does voting work in Georgia?
Georgia voters make their selections on touchscreen voting machines that print paper ballots voters insert into scanners to tally the votes.
Such cast-vote records detail the votes from each ballot. Those records and electronic ballot images created by the scanners are randomized. But the software flaw allows them to be put back in the order they were cast, according to a report by researchers who discovered it in 2022.
Along with other publicly available data, that information could be used to match voters to their ballots, the researchers wrote.
Max Springer, a Princeton University researcher who was not involved in the original research and studies AI, said he gave a publicly available AI assistant that research. He said it was able to reverse the shuffling of electronic ballot records from Georgia’s May primary and then tell him what other records it would need to match names to ballots.
He then gave the AI assistant the early voting list for the counties he examined and the cast-vote record file, which could be obtained through a public records request. It was able to create “buckets of ballots and potential voters,” he wrote in a blog post. In many instances, that made it possible to match voters to their ballots.
In cases where ambiguity remained, he wrote, he got the public audit log for the ballot scanners and precinct check-in records and was able to match most ballots to specific voters.
“AI coding tools are essentially supercharging laymen people to exploit vulnerabilities,” Springer said in an interview.
Why does ballot secrecy matter?
Georgia’s Constitution says elections “shall be by secret ballot” and state law requires voting machines to “permit voting in absolute secrecy so that no person can see or know any other elector’s votes.”
A lack of ballot secrecy can make it easier to buy or sell votes and increase the danger of coercion to vote a certain way by family members, political organizations, employers or government officials. It also is information that could be invaluable to political campaigns.
Gabriel Sterling, special projects manager in the secretary of state’s office, pushed back on the concerns. He said it would be easier to use mail ballots if vote-buying or coercion was the goal and that it likely would be cheaper for campaigns to just increase outreach to voters who fit a certain profile than try to identify voters this way.
State Election Board member Salleigh Grubbs proposed a rule during the board’s August meeting that would have required the secretary of state’s office to apply the software update recommended by the manufacturer by Tuesday.
“Each (voter) has one vote, and no one is entitled to know how it was cast,” Grubbs said. “That privacy protects more than the individual voter. It protects the integrity of the entire election.”
In a letter to the election board, an agency lawyer argued that the update has not been certified by the secretary of state, the implementation would take months and the legislature has not provided necessary funding. The board rejected Grubbs’ proposal. Some members said they did not believe they had the authority to order the secretary of state to act and they raised concerns about the short timeline before the November midterms.
Board member Sara Tindall Ghazal, who voted against the proposal, said it is “intensely frustrating” that the software update has not been applied. But she pointed out that it is a felony to reveal how someone voted, which should serve as a deterrent.
“I hate the fact that it’s even physically possible, but there are very, very severe penalties if somebody were to actually do this,” she said.
What’s being done?
The secretary of state’s office sent guidance to county election officials instructing them to refer open records requests for certain records to the secretary of state’s office. It will release them with the problematic information blacked out and decline to release other information and documents.
Sterling said the office is working with a vendor to scramble the original order of ballot images and cast-vote records before they are made public. Halderman said that precaution would be necessary to keep someone from reconstructing the order.
While some other jurisdictions have applied the software update that reportedly fixes the problem, some have done what Georgia is now trying to do by restricting public access to the records needed to exploit the flaw.
Marilyn Marks is executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, which advocates for election transparency and security and raised the alarm about the vulnerability. She argued that withholding documents is not the solution and that steps need to be taken to ensure ballots cannot be traced to voters in the first place.
“When Georgia’s election records contain identifiers that can be used to trace ballots to voters, the only legal and acceptable answer is to stop recording that information — not restrict public access to sensitive unlawful information to insiders and commercial vendors,” she said.
With time growing short before the elections, Marks said a workable interim solution would be to collect ballots in locked boxes at precincts and then shuffle and scan them at a central tabulating center.
Security researchers are increasingly raising alarms about a vulnerability in Georgia’s voting equipment, which could allow voters to be matched to their ballots after they have been cast. This issue is particularly pressing given the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), which may facilitate the exploitation of such vulnerabilities. Election security advocates have criticized state officials for their slow response to this flaw, which, while not affecting the ability to change votes or cast doubt on election outcomes, jeopardizes the secrecy of ballots—an essential right under Georgia’s constitution.
The vulnerability has drawn attention as it allows for the reconstruction of the order in which votes were cast, potentially enabling the identification of how individuals voted. This poses a risk of coercion and vote-selling, undermining electoral integrity. Although Georgia’s election officials claim they have taken steps to address the issue, many advocates argue that their measures fall short, especially with the upcoming November elections looming.
The voting system in Georgia uses touchscreen machines that print paper ballots, which are then scanned to tally votes. Each ballot generates cast-vote records and electronic images that should be randomized. However, the flaw permits these records to be reordered, allowing researchers to match voters to their ballots using publicly available data. This issue was highlighted in research done by a team that uncovered the flaw in 2022.
Max Springer from Princeton University, who studied the vulnerability, demonstrated how an AI tool could reverse the shuffling of ballot records, revealing which voters were associated with specific ballots. He noted that the ease with which these tools can exploit vulnerabilities is alarming and underscores the need for urgent action.
Ballot secrecy is vital as it safeguards voters from coercion and manipulation. Georgia law explicitly states that elections must be conducted by secret ballot, ensuring that no one can ascertain how an individual has voted. Violations of this principle could lead to significant legal ramifications, including the potential for vote-buying or voter coercion by various entities, including family members and political organizations.
Gabriel Sterling, a representative from Georgia’s Secretary of State’s office, pushed back against concerns about the vulnerability, arguing that it would be easier for someone to buy votes through mail ballots rather than trying to identify individual votes through the exploit. However, the importance of maintaining integrity and secrecy in elections is paramount, as emphasized by state Election Board member Salleigh Grubbs, who advocated for the implementation of a software update to address the flaw.
Despite this, challenges persist. A proposed rule to enforce the update was rejected by the board, citing concerns over authority, funding, and the timeline before the elections. Some board members, while frustrated by the inaction, pointed out that severe penalties exist for anyone attempting to expose how someone voted, though this does not eliminate the risk posed by the vulnerability.
To mitigate the risk, the Secretary of State’s office has instructed county officials to handle open records requests carefully, blacking out sensitive information and withholding certain documents. They are also working with vendors to scramble ballot images and cast-vote records before public release, an effort that J. Alex Halderman suggests is necessary to prevent reconstruction of the ballot order.
Critics, including Marilyn Marks of the Coalition for Good Governance, argue that simply restricting access to records does not address the core issue. She asserts that the only acceptable solution is to prevent the tracing of ballots back to voters altogether, rather than limiting public access to information. Marks has proposed an alternative interim solution: collecting ballots in locked boxes at precincts and then scanning them in a centralized location to ensure their secrecy.
As the elections approach, the urgency to address this vulnerability grows. Georgia remains the only state using this specific voting system statewide, and the combination of an open records law and the vulnerability has created a precarious situation. The implications of the vulnerability could erode public trust in the electoral process, emphasizing the need for immediate and effective action to protect voter privacy and maintain the integrity of elections.
