Prairie State Wire

A complaint before the Illinois State Board of Elections alleges that the board is not adhering to its own recommendations to verify that a computer-readable code matches a voter’s ballot choices, jeopardizing the accuracy of the entire voting system.

George Weckbacher, chairman of Citizens Against Voter Fraud, filed the complaint. Weckbacher said that both the board’s director of voting and registration systems and its legislative director urged the board to adopt a system to verify that the QR Code, a two-dimensional barcode, matches the candidates selected on the ballot card – typically done using a Ballot Marking Device (BMD). It’s the QR Code that a vote tabulator machine reads to record the vote.

Weckbacher said that even board’s internal recommendations did not go far enough.

George Weckbacher, chairman of Citizens Against Voter Fraud | Provided

“They recommended that the verifications that code and voter’s choice match should take place at the end of the voting day,” Weckbacher told Prairie State Wire. “The trouble with that is the vote has already been counted and potentially spoiled. The verification should take before the voter places the ballot into the tabulator.”

On Aug. 26, 2020, Kyle Thomas, the board’s director of voting and registration systems, wrote a memo to the Board’s Executive Director in August 2020 that included this recommendation:

“Following the retabulation of ballots for early voting or for in-precinct, it is recommended that the jurisdiction perform a hand count of the ballots created by a BMD, in this case the ICX (a BMD made by Dominion Voting Systems). Each contest should be checked to ensure no discrepancies exist between the QR code and the human readable contest selections.”

In fact, Thomas recommended the adoption of a verification process in 2019, '20 and '21, each time the board approved a new model of a Dominion Voting System.

On March 5, 2020, Angela Ryan, the board’s legislative director, included the following statement in a memo to board members regarding legislation related to BMDs: “Additionally, it adds that ballots created using a BMD will require a hand count as part of the re-tabulation (post-election audit) process. Since QR/Barcodes are not human readable, this is an added security measure to ensure that no tampering has occurred with the QR/Barcode.”

Weckbacher stated in his complaint that board has failed to get the laws changed requiring a verification process be mandated.

“To date there is no legislation, no procedures and no jurisdiction verifying that the QR code matches the voter’s choice,” he wrote in his complaint.

He continued: “These voting systems need to be removed from service and not used until the equipment needed to read a QR Code are procured and the procedures are implemented that will allow a voter to verify their ballot has their correct choices on the ballot BEFORE they cast their ballot. This Board needs to ensure the voter is guaranteed that the vote they cast is secure and accurate and matches what the voter intended.”

The next board meeting is scheduled for Friday, July 29. Weckbacher said he will attend and speak but has been given no assurances by the board they will consider his complaint on that date. Board spokesman Matt Dietrich declined to comment on the substance of the complaint, but said that the Board will respond to Weckbacher's complaint in writing.