Your Vote May Not Be Private Anymore in Texas

Whether you go to cast your vote for the upcoming general election in Killeen, Texas, or somewhere else across the Lone Star State, one of the principles of the American election process is that all citizens that are registered are allowed to cast their vote freely and anonymously, or so we all believed.

All this time many have been worried about voting machines getting stuffed, hacked, or stolen. Turns out your vote cast in Texas could very easily be in the possession of just about anyone because access of public information allows for cast ballots to be investigated in several ways other than just looking over your shoulder as you cast your tally.

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According to this CBS News article, some of the efforts to make sure elections are transparent and free of outside influence has made it possible for someone to figure out exactly which ballot was yours, and therefore transparent exactly what and for whom you voted. Imagine what could be learned when all of that data is plugged into a machine, or given to artificial intelligence to digest on a large scale.

How Texans Vote No Longer A Secret Right Now

Lawmakers in Austin are working and implementing new rules to make sure the truly personal identifiers of a specific citizen and where they cast their vote to be redacted, but more effort is needed to make sure there are not enough bread crumbs to put together the puzzle well enough to land on someone's exact personal ballot.

Currently, how many people vote and feel politically is often already front and center because it is synonymous with their whole identity, and nothing prevents someone from doing that.

However, if you would like to continue keeping personal matters to your Texas self, then a lot of work needs to be done.