Fight To Safeguard Secret Ballot Continues in Harris County

By Erin Anderson | Texas Scorecard | August 14, 2025

A federal fight over protecting voters’ right to cast a secret ballot is underway in Harris County.

The fight began last year when Texas voters discovered that under certain circumstances, publicly available voting records could be used to match specific voters to their ballots, undermining the secrecy of their votes.

The Texas Secretary of State’s Office responded to voters’ privacy concerns by instructing local election officials to redact any information on publicly released documents that could connect a voter to their ballot choices.

But for some voters, that’s not enough to ensure confidence in the current system.

“One of the fundamental elements of trustworthiness is the confidentiality of the ballot box,” said Houston attorney Kenneth Zimmern, one of three Harris County voters suing local officials to ensure ballots remain secret.

Ballot privacy is essential in a democratic republic where certain political opinions may be unpopular and voters can face repercussions for their choices—including ostracism, extortion, bribery, or even losing their jobs.

That’s according to the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a law firm dedicated to fighting for election integrity.

PILF filed a complaint against Harris County in November 2024 on behalf of Zimmern and two other local voters, William Sommer and Caroline Kane.

The federal lawsuit alleges that Harris County’s voting system allows thousands of ballots to be tracked back to individual voters in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

“This case is about safeguarding the constitutional right to a secret ballot,” PILF attorneys argued in their latest filing in the case.

Plaintiffs seek only what the law already should promise: that no voter’s ballot may be easily traced back to them through government-maintained records. The undisputed evidence shows that Harris County’s recordkeeping system includes (1) Cast Vote Records (CVRs) linked to polling locations and ballot styles, (2) electronic poll books that log voter check-in times, and (3) publicly available voting rosters.

In combination, these records make it possible, particularly in small precincts or low-turnout elections, to identify specific voters’ ballots with extraordinary ease.

Harris County Clerk Tenisha Hudspeth, the county’s elections administrator and a defendant in the case, doesn’t deny government employees can access data required to deduce how specific people voted, only that such access would be “unauthorized.”

“The secret ballot is a cornerstone of political privacy,” said Public Interest Legal Foundation President J. Christian Adams, who is representing the plaintiffs along with PILF attorney Joe Nixon.

“Harris County voters have a right to cast a ballot without their friends and neighbors knowing who they voted for. Protecting the secret ballot is fundamental to the integrity of the electoral process,” said Adams.

The plaintiffs are seeking a court declaration that voters have a constitutionally protected right to a secret ballot.

They also want the court to keep county officials from viewing or making public any information that could identify anyone’s ballot or vote.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys requested an in-person hearing “so counsel may demonstrate how a vote may be easily ascertained from public records created and maintained by Harris County.”

“I hope that the lawsuit is successful,” said Zimmern. “I hope that the courts will protect the privacy of the ballot box. I think it’s a real threat to voters, and it’s not theoretical.”

“I’d like it to be crystallized,” he added. “I’d like the courts to issue some opinions that protect the privacy in Harris County and elsewhere.”

Erin Anderson

Erin Anderson is a Senior Journalist for Texas Scorecard, reporting on state and local issues, events, and government actions that impact people in communities throughout Texas and the DFW Metroplex. A native Texan, Erin grew up in the Houston area and now lives in Collin County.