AI agent cracks Georgia's secret ballot, exposing 1.5 million votes
An Algorithmic Failure Beneath the Secret Ballot
A Princeton researcher used a $20 AI coding agent to exploit a known vulnerability in Georgia's ballot scanners, reconstructing the cast order of 1.5 million in-person ballots from the May 2026 primary—98.9% of the total. By combining public records, the agent could identify individual voters' ballots in many counties, effectively destroying ballot secrecy. The fix, available since 2023, remains unapplied in many jurisdictions.
In some of Georgia's counties, I can determine the exact ballot cast by every voter at the vote centers—ballot secrecy is entirely lost.