A software flaw in Georgia’s voting machines could allow artificial intelligence tools to match individual voters to their ballots, raising fresh concerns about Georgia voting machine ballot secrecy ahead of the state’s November elections.
The State Election Board passed a resolution in a 3-2 vote on Monday urging Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to update the voting machine software, according to FOX 5 Atlanta. The vote came after an earlier board proposal to mandate the update by a specific deadline was rejected.
The flaw does not allow votes to be changed or cast doubt on election results. But it could let someone see how others voted, a violation of Georgia’s constitutional guarantee that elections ‘shall be by secret ballot.’
How the AI exploit works
Georgia voters mark their choices on touchscreen machines that print paper ballots, which are then scanned to tally votes. Those scanners create cast-vote records and electronic ballot images that are randomised. The software flaw allows them to be restored to the order in which they were cast, according to a report by researchers who discovered the vulnerability in 2022.
Max Springer, a Princeton University researcher who studies AI, tested the risk using a publicly available AI assistant. He gave it the research and said it reversed the shuffling of electronic ballot records from Georgia’s May primary, then identified which additional records it would need to match names to ballots.
Using an early voting list and cast-vote records obtained through a public records request, the AI was able to create, in Springer’s words, ‘buckets of ballots and potential voters.’ In ambiguous cases, he obtained public audit logs and precinct check-in records and matched most ballots to specific voters.
‘AI coding tools are essentially supercharging laymen people to exploit vulnerabilities,’ Springer said.
J. Alex Halderman, a voting technology specialist at the University of Michigan who helped expose the flaw, called it ‘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.’
Georgia voting machine ballot secrecy and what the state is doing
The secretary of state’s office has instructed county officials to redirect certain public records requests to the state office, which will release documents with sensitive information redacted. Gabriel Sterling, special projects manager in the secretary of state’s office, said the office is also working with a vendor to scramble the original order of ballot images and cast-vote records before they are made public.
An agency lawyer told the election board the manufacturer’s software update has not been certified by the secretary of state, that implementation would take months and that the legislature has not provided necessary funding.
Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group focused on election technology, said Georgia’s open records law combined with its statewide use of the affected system creates a ‘perfect storm.’ Georgia is the only jurisdiction where the system is used statewide.
‘It’s really embarrassing that this is still a possibility,’ Lindeman said.
Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, argued that restricting public access to records is not a solution. ‘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,’ she said.
Board member Sara Tindall Ghazal, who voted against the earlier deadline proposal, said it is ‘intensely frustrating’ that the update has not been applied, while noting that revealing how someone voted is a felony under state law.
The Monday resolution urging Raffensperger to act puts fresh pressure on the secretary of state’s office to move before polling day.
