Possible Breach in Ballot Secrecy Discovered in Michigan

People cast early ballots in the general election at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Nov. 7, 2022. Eff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

Election officials in Michigan have revealed that the government, and anyone else, can know whom a person voted for in certain circumstances involving both federal and state elections.

The simple process—described by the state Bureau of Elections (BOE) in a July legal proceeding—involves cross-checking the “Type of Voting” column on the state’s Qualified Voter File (QVF) with a statutorily required posting of election results by county clerks.

The “Type of Voting” column, also called the “Type of Voter” column, specifies an individual’s mode of voting. The three designations are EV for early voting, A for absentee ballot, and ED for Election Day in-person voting.

The QVF ties the individual’s mode of voting with his or her name, address, and voter identification number.

The county clerk’s posting lists the precinct vote totals that each candidate received from each mode of voting.

Secrecy is lost when a single voter or a small number of voters all vote in the same mode, in the same precinct, for the same candidate. It then becomes possible to determine for whom the individual or individuals voted.

To illustrate, only two people voted early in precinct one and both early votes went to candidate John Doe. All that must be done to know who cast those votes is to check the QVF to see who voted early in precinct one.

According to the BOE, voters in at least 2 percent of Michigan’s 5,000 precincts are vulnerable to infringement of their right to cast a secret ballot through this process.

An Imperfect Solution

To prevent these possible breaches of secrecy, the BOE adopted a policy to redact the entire Type of Voting column.

BOE stated it retains in its records the nonredacted data from the Type of Voting column because it could be needed in an election audit or government investigation into potential voter fraud.

Phani Mantravadi, founder of Check My Vote, an election watchdog organization, is a regular monthly subscriber to the Michigan QVF.

Mantravadi told The Epoch Times that since subscribing in December 2023, he had always received his copy of the QVF with the data in the Type of Voting column visible.

“It is an important component in helping to ensure the accuracy of the voter rolls,” he said.

Election integrity activist and electrical engineer Phani Mantravadi of Michigan. Courtesy of Phani Mantravadi

On Feb. 29, 2024, Mantravadi was informed by the BOE that effective March 1, the Voting Type column of the QVF would be redacted.

He objected, contending that the data was existent, nonexempt, and responsive public information that must be provided to anyone making a Freedom of Information request for it.

Mantravadi’s appeal was rejected by the BOE, so he filed a FOIA denial lawsuit in the Michigan Court of Claims, the court that has jurisdiction when the state government is being sued.

In his complaint, Mantravadi asked the court to order the BOE to produce the QVF including the data in the Type of Voting column.

After a flurry of legal filings, in which each party moved for dismissal of their opponent’s case, oral arguments were held on July 22 before Judge Christopher Yates.

According to a transcript of the hearing obtained by The Epoch Times, Erik Grill of the Michigan Attorney General’s office represented the BOE.

A Legal Dilemma

Grill acknowledged that Michigan’s FOIA statute required the BOE to disclose to the public the Type of Voting column data, but he said to do so would violate the act’s own privacy protection provision, as well as the right to a secret ballot as guaranteed by the state constitution.

Mantravadi’s attorney, Thomas Lambert of Jamestown, Michigan, offered a solution to the BOE’s dilemma.

Lambert suggested that the BOE could separate and redact only the Type of Voting column data belonging to the small percentage of individuals on the QVF who lived in precincts where it was easy to figure out whom they voted for, and preserve access to the 98 percent of the jurisdictions where there was no such danger.

Grill contended that the separation process was a practical impossibility, and if it could be accomplished, the expense of it would make it the most expensive FOIA response in history, costing tens of thousands of dollars, if not more.

Notwithstanding, Grill said the BOE was open to suggestions.

Lambert told the court, and a skeptical Grill, that he had a computer expert who could do the separation in “a matter of minutes.”

The court denied the plaintiff’s and the defendant’s motions for summary disposition.

Judge Yates told Lambert that his client is entitled to the vast majority of the information in the Type of Voting column of the QVF, but the problem is “there’s no practical way to separate that which you can get under FOIA and that which has to be kept under wraps so we don’t disclose how people voted.”

Yates said that at this point he was not going to dismiss the case because of practical impossibility. Instead, he said the parties had the option of coming together to try to work things out among themselves and then come back to the court and convince him “how we draw this line.”

The Epoch Times has learned that sometime after the hearing, a meeting took place between the parties but the outcome remains unknown.

None of the parties responded to a request for comment.

The case is ongoing.