The Potter County Republican Party has asked a federal judge in Amarillo to require every Texas ballot to be hand counted before the results of the Nov. 3 midterm elections can be certified.

The group’s lawsuit argues that voting machines may be susceptible to outside manipulation, but does not provide proof of vulnerabilities in equipment or the process of counting votes and certifying election results. The lawsuit specifies that it is not alleging that past Potter County or statewide election results have been altered or inaccurately reported.

Instead, the lawsuit cites potential for interference from artificial intelligence programs or “malicious actors” taking advantage of voting machine “components manufactured by foreign adversaries” such as China.

The petition asserts such potential interference can only be detected by a hand count of ballots to compare results with those tabulated by voting machines.

“If a component is tampered with during manufacturing, it could serve as a point-of-entry for unlawful and malfeasance hackers, allowing for the possibility of synchronized attacks across multiple election machines and jurisdictions,” the lawsuit said.

Ryan Macias, an election security consultant and former acting director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s Voting Systems Program, said technology can never be fully secure, but there are layers of protective measures to prevent interference — and to detect it if it does creep in. 

“It’s OK to be skeptical of machines, but the machines are only one part of the election process,” he said. “The election process itself is very resilient. … In terms of voting systems, Texas is one of the leaders in the security of voting systems.” 

State lawmakers have also made strides in strengthening voting security, particularly by implementing mandatory paper records, risk-limiting audits and rigorous equipment testing, said Chris McGinn, executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials.

“The Texas Legislature has repeatedly addressed the hypothetical concerns outlined in the lawsuit by instituting some of the strongest election integrity and transparency laws in the nation,” he said in a statement. “County election officials will follow those laws to the letter so Texans can trust that the results reflect the votes they cast.”

Additionally, because Texas voting machines are not connected to the internet, Macias said, the chance of foreign interference “is darn near zero.” 

“There’s never a zero risk, but that’s why we put protective, detective and recovery measures into place to be able to remediate if something were to happen,” said Macias, who served as the election technology analyst for the California secretary of state for 10 years.

Macias said the GOP group’s push to hand count all ballots as a security measure may have the opposite effect. “Every study that has looked at hand counting shows that there’s a margin of error in it because we’re humans and we’re fallible,” he said. “There’s naturally error, because we’re humans.”

When voting machines are used, Texas law requires a portion of paper ballots to be hand counted to verify the accuracy of machine tabulations. That audit, the lawsuit argues, is not enough.

“The paper record or ballot provides an independent verification mechanism only if election officials actually compare a complete hand-count of all of the paper records or ballots,” the petition said.

Macias said the ballot testing required in Texas is adequate to test machine counts. He compared it to making soup. 

After dipping a spoon in the pot multiple times, he said, “and every time it tastes perfect, does that mean that you have to eat the entire bowl of soup to determine whether or not it’s too salty?”

Texans cast 11.4 million ballots in the 2024 general election and 8.1 million in the 2022 midterms, according to the Texas secretary of state.

Potter County, in the Texas Panhandle, includes Amarillo. The 27-page lawsuit names Potter County’s election administrator but seeks to include voting officials in every county via class action.

The petition was filed Tuesday in Amarillo federal court and was assigned to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was nominated by President Donald Trump in 2017. Kacsmaryk is a favorite judge for conservative lawyers, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and his previous rulings include suspending federal approval of an abortion drug that was overturned by the Supreme Court.