Summary
Publishing the images of all ballots cast in an election would counter disinformation by allowing “rival campaigns, grassroots groups, press outlets, academics, and individual citizens” to view the results of an election for themselves. In many areas, ballots are scanned into digital images for election workers to review, and making those images public would be a relatively simple task. The risk of hacking is low because “forging hundreds—and sometimes thousands— of ballot styles, which change in every jurisdiction to reflect local races, would be an extraordinarily complex undertaking, and any attempt to do so on a large scale would likely be detected by security protocols.” While it remains unclear whether evidence of this sort would pacify election-deniers or merely get integrated into their conspiracy theories, it will at least assuage uncertainty among the general public.
Some counties and municipalities (in California, Florida, Maryland, and Wisconsin) have already implemented this idea, with local officials reporting that the practice of posting scanned ballots appears to have improved voter trust. A recent bipartisan effort in Arizona proposed legislation to “make public four sets of election records immediately after Election Day: registered voters; people who voted; digital ballot images; and cast-vote record.” Opponents’ concerns about individual voters’ identity and security, especially in small precincts, led Governor Hobbs to veto the bill. A revised version of the bill is now being put forward which would apply only to general elections and would allow individual counties to choose to release their ballot images.