WASHINGTON —Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, released the following statement on the reintroduction of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, in the U.S. Senate:

“Millions of voters are finding it harder to vote. They’re drawn into maps designed to protect politicians, not earn votes, and are told, despite years of voting, that they haven’t proven they belong in our democracy. Extremists who prefer a White, Christian and male controlled country don’t mind destroying our rights to see a return to the days when Black people, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans could be blocked from the ballot but told it’s not due to racism.

“As we approach the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, we face a captured Supreme Court, where an ideological majority has abandoned decades of precedent. And as we look toward the 2026 midterms, we face a Trump administration openly threatening to disenfranchise tens of millions based on lies about who is voting.

“We are not just celebrating 60 years of voting rights, we’re calling out  more than a decade of deliberate harm aimed at voters of color. Those in power see the rise of a multiracial democracy as a threat, and they are doing everything they can to silence it.

“But we won’t be silenced. We will not be threatened into submission. We will keep rising up and speaking out for the fundamental right to decide who represents us and what they do with our power.

“We  call on Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, along with the Freedom to Vote Act, the Native American Voting Rights Act, and DC statehood bill. This freedom package of laws are urgently needed to hold anti-voter politicians accountable for their attacks on our multiracial democracy.”

More than 200 civil rights and democracy organizations showed their support for the reintroduction of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in the Senate. You can read some of their statements of support here.

Earlier today, Maya Wiley joined coalition leaders and senators in a press conference on the reintroduction of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. You can see the full video of the press conference here.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 240 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.

 

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What are QR codes and barcodes?

You may have used your mobile phone to scan a QR code to get a coupon at a store, to access a WiFi network, or to open a menu at a restaurant. You’re likely also familiar with the striped pattern of barcodes, which are printed on everyday labels like clothing tags, grocery store items, and books. Both types of codes contain information that is decoded by a scanner. A barcode is a linear one-dimensional series of parallel lines. A quick-response code (QR code) is a type of two-dimensional matrix barcode made up of squares. QR codes and barcodes are readable by machines—including optical ballot scanners—but not readable by humans. 

 

Why are these codes printed on ballots?

QR codes and barcodes can tell a ballot scanner which election the ballot is valid for, what town, ward, or precinct you live in, or identify each ballot page number. In these cases, the barcodes and QR codes, printed in the margins of the ballot, are the same for every ballot in a particular ballot style—that’s the unique combination of candidates and issues that appear on your ballot. Think of a friend who lives in your county but in another city or town: they may vote for different school board members or vote for a mayor while you do not—you have different ballot styles. These types of codes do not contain voter-identifying information or encode your vote selections; they just tell the scanner which election and which precinct your ballot belongs to, which is especially important in vote center and mail ballot jurisdictions.

Some ballot marking devices (BMDs) print additional QR codes or barcodes on ballots to encode voters’ selections. These BMDs also print the text of the voter’s selections for each contest; however, the ballot scanner reads the encoded part to tabulate the voter’s ballot—not the text. While voters can (and should!) review their selections in the printed text, they can’t directly interpret the codes the ballot scanner will read to tabulate their votes. Other BMDs print ballots that are tabulated by scanners using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to read the human-readable text printed on the ballot. 

Some BMDs simply mark ballots by filling in ovals on the ballot to indicate voter choices; these machines don’t encode voters’ selections. Like the ballots voters hand mark with a pen, these machine-printed ballots are tabulated by scanners that interpret the filled-in ovals. 

Recently, voting system manufacturers with machines that encode votes have begun moving toward alternatives. For example, in 2019, Colorado prohibited the use of QR codes on ballots, which prompted that state’s main vendor to modify its voting system software to provide a BMD configuration that prints marked ballots that are identical to those hand marked by voters. This functionality was included in a new voting system version that was certified in 2023 and is currently used in Colorado, Michigan, and Nevada. Other election equipment manufacturers are also working on BMDs that print ballots in the same format as ballots hand marked by voters.

 

Are ballots that encode votes in QR codes and barcodes a security risk?

Some election security experts have raised concerns that QR codes and barcodes could be exploited to encode false votes. Since QR codes and barcodes are not directly human-readable, in such an attack, a ballot might appear to reflect a voter’s choices in the printed text, while the scanner actually reads and tabulates the selections that an attacker encoded. This can also happen by accident due to programming errors. If this kind of error is discovered during an election—as it was in 2023—poll worker instructions may vary, and some voters may be advised to ignore the human-readable text and trust that the encoded selections are correct. Whether the human-readable text or the (incorrect) encoded votes are the official votes depends on state law.

QR codes and barcodes make sense for ballot styles, but they shouldn’t be used to encode votes. The technology already exists—BMDs that do not encode voter selections are currently used in U.S. elections—and more manufacturers are developing BMDs that mark or print ballots that look the same as ballots hand marked by voters. Voters should be able to read their BMD-printed vote selections and review what the tabulator will scan to count their votes. 

 

Want to learn even more about QR codes and barcodes?

To find out if your jurisdiction uses machines that print QR codes or barcodes to encode votes, visit the Verifier’s new QR/Barcode map.

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May 9, 2025

The Honorable Kim Reynolds

Office of the Governor 

Iowa State Capitol

1007 East Grand Avenue

Des Moines, IA, 50319

Veto Request for House File 928

Dear Governor Reynolds,

On behalf of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, I write to request a veto on House File 928. Verified Voting’s mission is to strengthen democracy for all voters by promoting the responsible use of technology in elections. Since our founding in 2004 by computer scientists, we have acted on the belief that the integrity and strength of our democracy rely on citizens’ trust that each vote is counted as cast. We support the use of voter-verified paper ballots that are tabulated by scanners, then used in routine tabulation audits, and, when appropriate, recounts to check the results.

HF 928 limits recounts to contests with a very narrow margin and disallows campaign-funded recounts in contests with wider margins. While limiting taxpayer-funded recounts is reasonable, prohibiting recounts in contests with wider margins is problematic. Significant miscounts, though rare, do occur—such as in the 2006 Pottawattamie County, Iowa primary election, where a hand recount reversed the initial results in nine contested races.

The bill also requires ballots to be recounted with the same equipment used for the original count. As in Pottawattamie, manual recounts provide an important check on election results. While HF 928 allows for manual recounts under “extraordinary circumstances”—including when the tabulators fail—it limits their use to general assembly or local elections. Close federal or statewide contests would be ineligible for manual recounts, even if a machine error occurred. Iowa’s manual audit might detect the problem, but it cannot impact the election results. By limiting when and how recounts can occur, HF 928 risks undermining both voter confidence and the integrity of Iowa’s elections.

We respectfully request your veto on HF 928.

Sincerely,

C.Jay Coles

Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs

1  Bert Dalmer, “Polk County recorder to contest election,” Des Moines Register, June 24, 2006, available at: https://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=6607

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April 8, 2025 

The Honorable Francisco V. Aguilar 

Secretary of State  

Nevada State Capitol Building  

101 North Carson Street, Suite 3  

Carson City, NV 89701 

 

Dear Secretary Aguilar,  

As organizations committed to protecting and enhancing our democracy, we write  regarding our concerns with a specific aspect of Nevada’s Effective Absentee  System for Elections (EASE).[1] We have previously sought opportunities to discuss  our concerns, and hope that you may be able to find time to speak with us soon.  

As currently used, EASE allows voters covered by the Uniformed and Overseas  Absentee Citizens Voting Act (UOCAVA),[2] voters with disabilities, and voters  who are tribal members who reside on a reservation, to return their ballots over the  internet.[3] Electronic ballot return poses an inherently high security risk to Nevada’s elections and is improper under the Department of Defense grant terms that  governed the development and use of EASE. 

We hope that, by sharing the below information and raising these concerns, we  may illuminate these serious issues so that your administration will seek alternative  absentee voting solutions that do not put these voters’ ballots, and Nevada’s  elections, at risk. Especially as our democratic republic is being actively undermined at the federal level, it’s important our elections remain above question. We welcome the opportunity to work together with your office on these solutions.  

1 | EASE is a “High” Security Risk for Nevada Elections. 

Four federal government agencies—the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the  Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency  (CISA), the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) and the National  Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST)—have concluded in a risk  assessment that “electronic ballot return” is “high” risk, even with security  safeguards and cyber precautions in place.[4] In other words, even with all the  security tools and protections deployed with EASE, these ballots are still at high  risk for compromise. The agencies specifically warn that electronic ballot return “faces significant security risks to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of  voted ballots,” and that these risks can “ultimately affect the tabulation and  results and can occur at scale,” and explicitly recommends paper ballot return.[5] 

Thus, the ballots of Nevadan UOCAVA voters, voters with disabilities, and voters  who are tribal members who reside on a reservation, who use EASE to return their  ballots over the internet, and Nevada’s elections themselves, incur high risk for  cyber incidents, privacy violations, ballot deletion, or election tampering. Especially at a time when the integrity and veracity of election results are  continuously called into question, it is not prudent to ignore the significant security  warning issued by the four federal government agencies charged with protecting  our nation’s election infrastructure. 

Beyond the four-agency report, there is broad consensus, from both the public and  private sector, that electronic ballot return presents severe security risks to the  integrity of our elections, because ballots cast over the internet can be intercepted, deleted and altered at scale—and can therefore change election results. 

• In 2019, the bipartisan U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported on its findings that foreign governments were actively trying to  attack American election systems. As part of that report, the Committee  determined “States should resist pushes for online voting. …While the  Committee agrees states should take great pains to ensure members of the  military get to vote for their elected officials, no system of online voting has  yet established itself as secure.”[6]
• In late 2022, experts convened by the University of California’s Berkeley  Center for Security in Policy concluded that creating standards for online  ballot return so that it can be done securely and privately was not feasible. “When internet ballot return is employed,” the Working Group wrote, “it  may be possible for a single attacker to alter thousands or even millions  of votes. And this lone individual could perpetrate an attack from a different  continent from the one where the election is being held – perhaps even while  under the protection of a rogue nation where there is no concern of  repercussions.”[7]
• Following up on the four-agency report, NIST (the federal agency  responsible for issuing cybersecurity standards) conducted research on ways  to enhance accessibility for voters with disabilities. Its 2022 report,  Promoting Access to Voting, notably did not recommend electronic ballot  return, instead concluding, “there remain significant security, privacy, and  ballot secrecy challenges.”[8]

2 | Because of the severe and well-documented security risks inherent with online ballot return, the federal grant used to develop EASE explicitly

Starting in 2000, the federal government invested considerable time and resources  in studying the security issues introduced by the electronic return of voted ballots.  The research was conducted with the aim of developing security standards for an  electronic ballot return system for military and overseas voters.[9] After decades of  research and multiple studies determined that there were numerous, insoluble  security issues,[10] Congress then repealed a directive to the Department of Defense  to develop an electronic ballot return system in 2015.[11] 

As this research was being conducted, Congress authorized funding for grants to be  distributed by the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) to states to improve  voting for UOCAVA voters through the EASE Grant programs. According to the  FVAP.gov website: 

In 2011, 2013, and again in 2023, FVAP offered research grants to states  and localities to research improving services provided to military and  overseas voters. The Effective Absentee Systems for Elections (EASE)  grants have the goal of increasing the percentage of ballots successfully  returned by voters covered by the FVAP administered Uniformed and  Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). The resulting data  from the grant programs will help to identify and improve the true nature of  the entire voting experience for military and overseas voters.[12] 

The FVAP’s description of the EASE grants includes this specific qualification: 

“Please note the electronic transmission of voted ballots is not funded  through these grant programs.”[13] 

Congress and the FVAP recognized that we do not yet have the tools to transmit  voted ballots securely over the internet, and specifically prohibited using any  federal funds for that purpose.  

1. Nevada’s EASE System was developed with an FVAP EASE 2 grant, which  explicitly prohibits using the funds to develop a system or components that  return voted ballots electronically for the life of the system or components.  

Nevada first developed its EASE system with a grant from the Department of  Defense’s FVAP and no additional funding. According to the EASE Overview  published on the Nevada Secretary of State website: “Without any additional state  funding, the Secretary of State’s office developed the system with a grant from the  Department of Defense’s Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), which was  used to design and develop an application that allows military and overseas voters  to access their blank absentee ballot online beginning with the 2014 general  election.”[14] In 2013, Nevada received an EASE 2 grant from the FVAP for  $386,500.00 to develop a “uniform statewide UOCAVA ballot delivery system.”  According to the state’s proposal, EASE would “seamlessly integrate[] all parts of  the UOCAVA process (voter registration, ballot request, and online ballot  marking) into a single online system.”[15] Notably, the proposal included nothing  about electronic ballot return. 

The EASE grant terms and contracts expressly prohibit using the grant funds for a  system or components of a system that return ballots electronically, even after the  grant term expires. FVAP emphasized this prohibition through multiple channels.  Both the Broad Agency Announcement published by the FVAP and the grant  

contract issued to all recipients (including Nevada) included these terms:  

The grant awards will not fund the electronic return of a voted ballot.  Applicants will certify prior to award that they will not use any grant funds  to develop a system for the electronic return of a marked ballot. Further  applicants will certify that they will not use the system components  developed with grant funds, after the award ends, for the electronic return of  voted ballots.[16] 

The FVAP further clarified this restriction in its EASE 2.0 Questions and Answers  regarding the grant:  

Grant Recipients are prohibited from using the system or portion of the  system developed with grant funds for the electronic return of a marked  ballot for the life of the components developed with the grant funds.[17]

Although the grant terms and contract explicitly prohibited the electronic return of  voted ballots, on November 20, 2013, then-Secretary of State Ross Miller gave  testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House  Administration, and admitted that the system Nevada built with its grant would  return the voted ballot electronically to the election office.[18] 

To illustrate how seriously the Department of Defense sought to enforce the grant  terms, the Department launched an Inspector General investigation into the use of  the FVAP grants in Nevada, prompted by Secretary Miller’s testimony. The  investigators visited Nevada and were given a demonstration of Nevada’s EASE  system by the Secretary of State’s office.  

The investigators reported that the system demonstrated by the Secretary of State’s  office allowed the voter to save a marked, electronic ballot to the voter’s computer  that could then be returned as an email attachment. Because the system, as it was  demonstrated, did not itself transmit the voted ballot back, the Inspector General’s  office concluded that Nevada did not violate the terms of the FVAP grants.[19] 

Subsequently, the Secretary of State’s office put a disclaimer on its website that  stated, “User must return their completed documents and ballot to their Nevada  election office independent of EASE – EASE does not return any documents for a  user.”[20] 

However, according to a March 26, 2023 email sent by the Nevada State Election  Director, Mark Wlaschin, “EASE offers a means for direct submission [of a voted  ballot] (where it goes directly on the SOS server and then is available for the  Clerk), but it is not required and they can print & mail it back on their own as  well.”[21] If the election director’s description is accurate, Nevada is violating the  terms of the EASE 2 grant awarded to Nevada by the FVAP, which prohibits states  from using any component of a system built with federal funds, for the life of the  components, to electronically return voted ballots.  

We note that as of April 7, 2025, the website no longer states that the voter is  required to return the ballot through means other than EASE. 

3 | Conclusion 

EASE should not be used by Nevadans to undertake electronic ballot return. According to the FBI, Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and  Infrastructure Security Agency, National Institute of Standards and Technology  and U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Nevada’s EASE system is at “high  risk” for cyber attacks that can compromise ballot integrity, security and  availability that may affect tabulation and election results, and may occur at scale.  

Further, if Nevada’s EASE system operates as it has been described by the state  election director, by directly transmitting voted ballots to the Secretary’s server for  distribution to the clerk’s offices, it violates the federal grant contract and terms for  the grant Nevada was awarded for the development of EASE in 2014.  

We hope that this information will prompt your administration to seek alternative  voting solutions for eligible voters that do not put their ballots, and Nevada’s  elections, at risk—and that may not violate federal contract terms. We welcome the  opportunity to work together with your office on these solutions. 

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

  

Sincerely,  

Susan Greenhalgh
Senior Advisor on Election Security
Free Speech for People

Aquene Freechild 
Co-Director, Democracy Campaign
Public Citizen 

Megan Maier 
Deputy Director of Research & Partnerships
Verified Voting

1. 1 Please note that both the electronic balloting system in use in Nevada, and the federal grants  referenced in this letter are referred to by the acronym “EASE,” though both stand for different  terms. “EASE,” the system used in Nevada stands for “Effective Absentee System for Elections.”  “EASE” grants stands for “Electronic Absentee System for Elections.” We regret the inevitable  confusion this may cause. 

2. 2 Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), 52 U.S.C. §§ 20301–20311, 39  U.S.C. § 3406, 10 U.S.C. § 1566, and 18 U.S.C. §§ 608–609. 

3. 3 Nev. Rev. Stat. § 293.269951(1)(b).

4. U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National  Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Risk  Management for Electronic Ballot Delivery, Marking, and Return 1 (2020), available at  https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/Final_%20Risk_Management_for_Electronic Ballot_05082020.pdf?mod=article_inline.

5. Id.

6. Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate on Russian Active Measures  Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 1 (2019),https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf

7. R. Michael Alvarez et al., University of California, Berkeley Center for Security in Politics,  Working Group Statement on Developing Standards for Internet Ballot Return 10 (2022),  https://csp.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Working-Group-Statement-on-Internet-Ballot Return.pdf.

8.  National Institute of Standards and Technology, Promoting Access to Voting: Recommendations for  Addressing Barriers to Private and Independent Voting for People with Disabilities 48 (2022),  https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1273.pdf.

9. 9 See generally Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), Electronic Voting Demo Project (2017),  https://www.fvap.gov/info/reports-surveys/evdp-report.

10. 10 See National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), NIST Activities on UOCAVA Voting,  (May 12, 2012, updated, January 4, 2023),. https://www.nist.gov/itl/voting/uocava-voting.

11. 11 See Congressional Research Service, The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act:  Overview and Issues, 11 (October 26, 2016), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RS/RS20764.

12. Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), Grant Programs, https://www.fvap.gov/eo/grants (last  visited Mar. 6, 2025).

13. Id.

14. 14 Nevada Secretary of State, EASE – Overview, https://www.nvsos.gov/sos/elections/voters/uniformed-overseas-citizens/ease-overview (last  visitedMar. 5, 2025).

15. 15 Office of the Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, Nevada Effective Absentee System for Elections  Technical Proposal 2 (2014),,https://www.fvap.gov/uploads/FVAP/Grants/Nevada_application_2.pdf.

16. 16 Federal Voting Assistance Program, Broad Agency Announcement For States, Territories and Local  Governments Effective Absentee Systems for Elections (EASE) 2.0 Grants 4, https://www.fvap.gov/uploads/FVAP/Grants/EASE%202_BAA.pdf; see also Federal Voting Assistance Program, Grant Award (“Terms and Conditions”) (2013), https://www.fvap.gov/uploads/FVAP/Grants/Nevada_H98210-13-1-0006.pdf.

17. 17 Federal Voting Assistance Program, EASE 2.0 Questions and Answers, https://www.fvap.gov/uploads/FVAP/Grants/EASE%202%20Question%20and%20Answers.pdf

18. 18 See Military and Overseas Voting in 2012: Hearing Before the Comm. on House Administration,  113 Cong. 57–58 (2013) (Statement of Ross Miller), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG 113hhrg86539/pdf/CHRG-113hhrg86539.pdf.

19. 19 “Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense, Assessment of the Effective Absentee System for  Elections (EASE) Grants 8–9 (2015), https://media.defense.gov/2015/Jun/30/2001713517/-1/- 1/1/DODIG-2015-135.pdf.

20. 20 https://web.archive.org/web/20161125054253/http://nvsos.gov/sos/elections/voters/uniformed overseas-citizens

21. 21 Email from Nevada Election Director Mark Wlaschin to Susan Greenhalgh, Free Speech For  People (March 26, 2023).

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April 15, 2025

Oklahoma House Committee on Appropriations and Budget

2300 N Lincoln Blvd.

Oklahoma City, OK 73105

Via email

Dear Chair Caldwell and Members of the Committee:

On behalf of Verified Voting, I submit these comments on Senate Bill No. 147. Verified Voting is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization whose mission is to strengthen democracy for all voters by promoting the responsible use of technology in elections. Since its founding by computer scientists in 2004, Verified Voting has promoted voter-verified paper ballots and routine, rigorous post-election audits to check the accuracy of computerized voting systems. We support this measure’s intent to create a statutory requirement for routine post-election audits in Oklahoma and also offer a suggestion in alignment with best practices.

Currently, the Secretary of the State Election Board has the authority to conduct post-election audits, but there is no requirement that audits be conducted. SB 147 would require that audits take place after general, primary, presidential primary, and runoff primary elections and would also grant the Secretary the authority to require audits after “any election.” Oklahoma already conducts post-election audits on a routine basis, so solidifying this practice in statute is both commonsense and a step forward for election security in the state.

A post-election audit is defined in the subcommittee substitute as “a manual or electronic examination of a limited number of ballots by a secretary of a county election board or other authorized election officials following an election.” We would suggest revising the definition of a post-election audit so that it requires a manual examination of paper ballots. (Electronic audit processes can be useful, but should not replace manually examining some of the physical paper ballots.) This change would reflect how Oklahoma currently conducts its audits and would also accord with best practices. 

Experts agree that post-election audits should be conducted with a manual hand-to-eye examination of the paper ballots. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommend, “Audits of election outcomes should include manual examination of statistically appropriate samples of paper ballots cast (emphasis added).”[1]

Thank you for considering our comments. We would be pleased to provide any additional guidance as Oklahoma considers election audit legislation.

Respectfully submitted,

Chrissa LaPorte

Deputy Policy & Strategy Director

 

1. 1 | National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25120. 

On March 25, the Trump Administration issued an executive order (EO), “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” Despite its title, the EO does not protect the integrity of American elections, something that is a nonpartisan priority for all voters, regardless of party. 

For the record, an EO is not the same as a law passed by Congress, and this one conflicts with some existing laws. As written, the EO upends the constitutional framework that ensures states administer elections, creating unnecessary uncertainty for election officials and potentially confusion for voters. For these and other reasons, the EO has already been challenged in court. Several organizations have filed lawsuits, including The Campaign Legal Center and the State Democracy Defenders Fund, noting that the president does not have the authority to dictate election rules. In addition, a coalition of civil rights groups also sent this letter to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), highlighting a number of legal and regulatory issues with implementing the order—more on that below.

The EO includes some sections with implications for election technology. Here are some specifics:

Paper Ballots/Paper Records are mentioned in Section 1, where the EO says that for elections to be worthy of the public’s trust, voting methods must “produce a voter-verifiable paper record allowing voters to efficiently check their votes to protect against fraud or mistake.” Verified Voting has championed paper ballots for more than 20 years, so we have been tracking this on the Verifier: today, paper ballots and paper records are already in use in every state except Louisiana. Voters use a patchwork of different voting systems depending on where they live, because elections are run by the states, and rules vary.¹  For more than two decades, movement toward ensuring all voters can review their choices on a physical ballot has been widespread and consistent. That said, not all paper-based voting systems are the same, and the details matter.   

Barcodes and QR Codes are mentioned in Section 4 of the EO: “Improving the Election Assistance Commission” (EAC), seeks a change in the guidelines, known as the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG), against which voting systems are tested and certified by the EAC. The goal of the proposed change is to prohibit [decertify] voting systems, primarily certain ballot marking devices (BMDs), that use barcodes or QR codes to encode voter choices. 

BMDs provide an accessible voting option for voters. It is a federal requirement to provide at least one accessible system per polling place. The BMD presents the ballot to a voter through an electronic interface, allowing the voter to make selections, and then produces a paper record printout for the voter to check before casting.²  On some models, that paper record printout includes encoding of vote choices in a barcode or QR code along with a summary list of vote choices. Other models produce a paper record that is only a summary list of the voter’s choices in plain text, while still other BMDs generate printouts similar to a hand-marked paper ballot (fill in the oval), which do not encode votes. 

To be clear, bar/QR encoding of votes is neither necessary nor desirable because voters can’t interpret what’s in the encoding, and votes should be counted from human-readable text that voters can verify (for a deep dive, read this piece by Prof. Andrew Appel, who has written extensively about the use of codes on ballots). Encoding is not needed to count votes if the system is designed to count either using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), that is, reading the selections —that voters can verify—from the plain text, or by detecting the filled-in ovals.  

Currently, 1,954 counties spread across 40 states use voting machines that encode votes in QR or barcodes (though the use of non-encoding systems is growing). In some places, these machines are used to provide accessible voting for voters with disabilities, where most voters manually mark a paper ballot. In other jurisdictions, BMDs are in use for all voters. To find out if your jurisdiction uses machines that print barcodes or QR codes to encode votes, visit the Verifier, click on your state and county, and scroll down to the voting equipment table—we’ve added a column showing if a certain system encodes votes.

It’s important to understand the paper ballot and encoding provisions of the EO in context. The order says the EAC must bring about these new requirements by changing the guidelines—known as the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG)—to which federal testing and certification is carried out. Updating these standards involves layers of critical stakeholder input and public comment periods so that you and others can weigh in. That takes significantly more time than the order contemplates, even if the Administration had the authority to direct the EAC in this way (it does not).

A key word here is “voluntary”. Adherence to the VVSG is voluntary—meaning it is left up to the states to decide if they require their voting systems to be certified federally at all, and if so, to the most current version of the VVSG. As of the time of the most recent update to the VVSG (Feb. 2021), “11 states and Washington, D.C. require full EAC certification of voting equipment in statute or rule” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). 

Also worth noting: right now, no voting systems are yet certified to the most current standards, though there are a few in the testing phase. Even so, a number of states have already moved away from encoding on ballots with more likely to follow, making it clear that a confusing executive order with no funding support is not necessarily the best way to get things done.

The original version of this blog was published on April 9, 2025 and was updated on May 21, 2025 to clarify and include more information about voting systems that encode votes.