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Kansas Secretary of State Blocks Release of Voting Machine Tapes
PvtVoid writes: Wichita State University statistician Beth Clarkson has filed a lawsuit under Kansas' open records law to force the state to release paper tape records from voting machines, to be used as data in her research on statistical anomalies in voting patterns in the state. Clarkson, a certified quality engineer with a Ph.D. in statistics, has analyzed election returns in Kansas and elsewhere over several elections that indicate 'a statistically significant' pattern where the percentage of Republican votes increase the larger the size of the precinct. The pattern could be voter fraud or a demographic trend that has not been picked up by extensive polling. Secretary of State Kris Kobach argued that the records sought by Clarkson are not subject to the Kansas open records act, and that their disclosure is prohibited by Kansas statute.
That said, data should be anonymized if it isn't already. When I vote, my ballot doesn't have any identifying information on it, so releasing records exactly as they were captured wouldn't tell you anything about me at all.
In which case it also wouldn't prove anything at all, like whether your vote was fraudulent or not.