爆料TV

One of Michigan鈥檚 most populous counties will post all ballots online

Macomb County has begun to post online an image of every ballot cast in the pivotal swing county.

The county, Michigan鈥檚 third most populous, is using a program called 鈥淏allot Verifier鈥� to upload scans of every ballot cast for anyone to see. from the November 2025 election are already online, as is the 鈥渃ast vote record,鈥� which shows how tabulators read each ballot.

Images of cast ballots 鈥� which do not include a voter鈥檚 name, address, party affiliation, or other identifying information 鈥� are already public record and can be requested through local officials. Putting them online simply improves transparency, Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini said.

鈥淲e all wonder, when we put our ballot in, 鈥榙id it score it the right way?鈥欌�� Forlini told . 鈥淭his takes a little bit of the mystery out of it and adds a little bit of accountability for all of us.鈥�

The premise is simple: Let voters see the ballots, and they can judge the results for themselves. Since Michigan votes on paper ballots, that means anyone can see the sometimes wacky ways people fill in bubbles by hand 鈥� an X where a bubble should be, a rant scrawled next to a candidate鈥檚 name 鈥� right alongside , , and all the other markings that show the full range of voter intent.

Macomb County plans to post images going back through the November 2024 election and will include future elections in the program as well, Forlini said. He is running for secretary of state as a Republican.

Ballot Verifier caught his attention about a year ago, he said, after he saw how it worked. It鈥檚 been used in a few counties around the country in the past few years. In Ada County, Idaho, which adopted it , elections director Saul Seyler said the program 鈥渉as helped build public confidence.鈥�

The program helped address election distrust at the roots, Seyler said. Ada County 鈥� Idaho鈥檚 most populous county and home to Boise 鈥� has worked to improve trust for years, including offering of the facilities where ballots are handled and when remodeling their offices.

Ballot Verifier, he said, offered the chance for voters to ensure that the machines had counted their ballots correctly. Officials brought out some of the department鈥檚 鈥渉arshest critics鈥� to provide feedback on the tool, Seyler said, and even they found it useful.

鈥淩ealistically, probably 95% of the public won鈥檛 ever use the tool, but there is something to the fact that it鈥檚 available,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a confidence that gets built just by knowing it鈥檚 there.鈥�

It has required some minor tweaks to protocol to ensure voters don鈥檛 accidentally violate their own right to a secret ballot. The county changed their ballot language, for instance, to make clear that ballots are public records and that voters shouldn鈥檛 leave identifying marks.

Voter privacy is one of the greatest concerns about such programs. Michigan voters have a right to a secret ballot. Maintaining that is key, said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, because ballot secrecy laws exist to protect voters from coercion or vote buying. Stray marks or seemingly random write-in choices can still tie a ballot directly to a voter, he said.

He pointed to the 2008 , where a ballot that included several write-in spaces marked with 鈥淟izard People鈥� because canvassers agreed with a challenge characterizing it as an identifying mark, which .

Election officials need to find a 鈥渢ransparent way鈥� to reject the ballots images that are 鈥渕ost blatantly potentially identifiable,鈥� Lindeman said, which can look different depending on the ballot and an election鈥檚 circumstances.

In Ada County, officials tried to address the potential issue by working with Civera, the company that produces Ballot Verifier, to ensure that voters are 鈥渕asked鈥� if something about their ballot would identify them, meaning it won鈥檛 be made publicly available. It鈥檚 not unheard of for only a single voter in a precinct to get a specific combination of taxing districts on their ballot, for example, and officials wanted to make sure that ballot would still remain private.

That and other workflow changes can add yet another step to 鈥渁n already kind of chaotic time,鈥� Seyler said, but he believes the change has already saved Ada County money: he said the published ballot images and cast vote records have prevented at least two recounts by allowing potential challengers to review records without having to file for one.

鈥淭his can not only be a resource to help build trust, but it can also just help you operationally,鈥� he said.

was produced by and reviewed and distributed by 爆料TV.