This story was written in response to a reader question submitted through our Open Source platform. Do you have a question you want our reporters to answer? Click here to submit it.
Reader question: When you vote and your ballot prints, there’s a QR code. What is the code for? How is it used? You’re not supposed to scan or take pictures ballots? Why not? What if you did scan the barcode?
MANSFIELD — More than 6,600 Richland County voters had taken advantage of early, in-person voting as of Sunday afternoon.
Using the Dominion polling machines (which are not connected to the internet), voters may notice a Quick Response (QR) code when “printing” their ballot after voting.
One reader asked us about that code and added a couple more queries. With Election Day coming Tuesday, we are happy to get the answers.
First, no reason to worry. There is nothing suspicious occurring, according to Matt Finfgeld and Jane Zimmerman, the director and deputy director for the Richland County Board of Elections.
Keep in mind, Finfgeld is a Democrat and Zimmerman is a Republican. The local board of elections is equally divided — two Republicans and two Democrats.
The actual meaning of bipartisan.
“The QR code is just the ballot itself. It works only in conjunction with our ballot programming. The QR code is useless without our software,” the duo said in a response to a Richland Source email.
“It only lists the choices made by the voter, it does NOT contain any voter information,” Finfgeld and Zimmerman said.
Ohio law prevents voters from taking photos while in the polling place. Ballots are supposed to be private and this law ensures the privacy of voters is protected.
Ohio Revised Code 3599.20 also prohibits an elector from showing their ballot to another, so be careful using that Smartphone to record an image of your ballot.
This applies to social media, where thousands could potentially see your ballot. People could be found guilty of a fifth degree felony if they willingly violate this law.
That prosecution seems unlikely, but why take the chance?
Just get out there and vote on Tuesday. Polls will be open 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Okay, I know that I can ‘see’ my choices on the ballot when I cast it in the man-readable version. What I cannot do is check to make sure that the QR code correctly recorded my choices. Sorry, but that is not acceptable to me. I asked the same question about this when I cast my ballot and the poll worker hemmed and hawed and indicated that it DID NOT contain my votes, only identifying information. That is also not acceptable. The poll workers only go by what they are told. Have they seen any demonstrations?
The voter should be able to know what exactly is contained in the QR code – they should have the same means of decoding it as will the tabulating software. To tell me to just ‘trust us’ is bunk. I trust nobody anymore. It is ridiculous to put something like this on a ballot and forbid, by law, the voter, or elector if you will, from attempting to decode this symbol.
“Keep in mind, Finfgeld is a Democrat and Zimmerman is a Republican. The local board of elections is equally divided — two Republicans and two Democrats.
“The actual meaning of bipartisan.”
It is very possible that the two ‘bipartisans’ are as uninformed as I as to what information exactly is contained. Unless they have verified by running ballots through a tabulator that is only looking at the QR code and verifying that the votes match the man-readable selections will I be convinced that they know what they are attempting to assure us is true. Voters need to know that they are not being hoodwinked.