Texas firm Authentix backs GOP push for high-tech ‘fraud-proof’ ballots

But the specialized inks and watermarks also would limit the number of companies capable of selling ballot paper — potentially to just one Texas firm with no previous experience in elections that consulted with the lawmakers proposing the measures.

Mark Finchem, an Arizona state representative spearheading the initiative, said in an interview that he developed ideas for the proposals after discussions with executives of Authentix, a company in Addison, Tex. The firm has since hosted other GOP lawmakers at its office and given presentations about the idea to legislators in two states, according to participants and social media posts.

The proposals face stiff battles before they can become law, but they demonstrate the potentially lucrative business opportunities created by suspicions that Donald Trump and his allies have spread about the security of elections. They also vividly illustrate how a loose network of die-hard Trump supporters is coordinating to push concerns about mass electoral fraud, including through conference calls that one participant said has included regular discussion of the nearly identically worded anti-counterfeit bills.

There is no evidence that counterfeit or fake ballots have been a problem in American elections. Yet, when versions of the measure modeled on Finchem’s proposal were heard late last month by committees of the Virginia and Arizona state senates, citizens lined up to tell lawmakers that they believed the 2020 presidential election had been rigged against Trump and that new measures were needed to prevent counterfeits.

“This has never been a problem in modern American history,” said David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, noting that checks and balances built into the system would make it extremely difficult to pass off fake ballots as real ones. “The only problem this would be solving — requiring a particular company with particular paper — is if you think that the taxpayers aren’t paying enough in taxes.”

Finchem, who is also running for Arizona secretary of state with Trump’s endorsement, said he approached Authentix sometime after the 2020 election when he became concerned about reports of “fictitious ballots injected into the system.” He was put in touch with the company by a friend in Florida who Finchem said was familiar with the company’s work adding authenticating markers to other products, such as fuel and bank notes. “It was somebody who knew somebody,” said Finchem, who declined to name the friend. “No more complicated than that.”

In an email, Authentix marketing executive Kent Mansfield said Finchem was referred to the company by a person familiar with its reputation who was “formerly associated with Authentix decades ago” but has no current financial tie to the company. In response to Finchem’s inquiry, Mansfield said the company “presented various technologies” that could improve the security of ballot paper. He added that the company offers a “broad range of solutions” and that it is ultimately up to customers — in this case, states and localities — to decide on their preferred “level of security and subsequent resistance against counterfeiting.”

In Arizona, private contractors reviewing the election results in Maricopa County at the behest of the GOP-led state Senate last year pursued rumors that thousands of counterfeit ballots — potentially smuggled in from Asia — helped hand the swing state to Joe Biden. Workers for a time shined UV lights at individual ballots in an attempt to spot frauds. The contractors ultimately asserted that paper used for ballots “made it difficult to identify any potential counterfeit ballots” — but they did not allege that they actually had turned up any fake ballots.

Even so, Finchem said that last year he asked Authentix to create a mock-up Arizona ballot containing any security measure the company could devise that would make the ballot difficult to reproduce by nefarious actors. In March, company executives presented the mock-up to Arizona lawmakers at an informational meeting hosted by Finchem in Phoenix.

“It was like one of those holy cow moments,” Finchem said of the reaction to the company’s presentation. “We said, ‘Okay! Someone’s not going to be able to counterfeit this.’ … As soon as people saw it, they said, ‘This is a demonstrable measure that will help voters gain greater confidence in our elections.’ ”

Current requirements for ballot paper differ around the country. Some states, including California, already require watermarks. But no locality requires the specialized microscopic patterns, holograms and heat-sensitive inks included among the 19 specific items in Finchem’s proposal.

During testimony in front of Wisconsin lawmakers in August, Mansfield said the company had been invited in Arizona to propose any new security measures it could envision. “They just said, ‘Surprise us,’ ” Mansfield told the lawmakers. He conceded that company officials “are not experts in state voting” but said their expertise in security made them well positioned to propose ideas to make ballot paper that would be difficult to replicate.

In October, Authentix hosted a tour of its corporate offices for Finchem and several other pro-Trump Republicans state lawmakers and candidates for secretary of state, according to tweets posted by several attendees at the time.

In a December presentation to a panel in Louisiana charged with making recommendations to revamp that state’s voting system, retired Army Col. Phil Waldron, who helped push false theories that the election was stolen in the weeks after the November 2020 vote, appeared to make reference to Authentix as he pitched a plan to replace voting machines with a system that would rely entirely on hand-counted ballots. He described it as a “company in Texas” that could produce paper with “so many built-in anti-counterfeit measures.”

Asked afterward by The Washington Post for the name of the company, Waldron said that he would have to ask if the company wanted to be identified. He later stopped responding to questions.

Mansfield said that Waldron was present at an October tour of the company organized by Finchem but that Authentix has “no affiliation, agreement, or agency with him” and that any comments he made came “without any endorsement, guidance, or instruction” from the company. Waldron worked closely after the election with a cybersecurity firm called Allied Security Operations Group that, like Authentix, is based in Addison, Tex. Officials with both companies said there is no connection between them.

From Arizona, Finchem has helped popularize the anti-counterfeit idea with other pro-Trump state lawmakers.

Jeffery Magrum, a state representative in North Dakota, said he learned about the idea from Finchem when both attended a symposium on the election fraud claims hosted by Trump confidant and MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell in South Dakota in August. Magrum has proposed a nearly identical measure in North Dakota, using sample language provided by Finchem. “It would be a fraud-proof ballot,” he said.

In Virginia, state Sen. Amanda F. Chase (R) said she, too, first learned of the idea from Finchem. She said the anti-counterfeit ballot measure has been a subject of repeated conversation on regular conference calls of an “election integrity caucus” of state lawmakers founded at the Lindell event.

In October, Chase was part of the group that toured Authentix’s offices, according to a video she posted on Twitter at the time. Chase’s bill contains language that closely matches an Authentix website advertising the company’s services. When she presented her bill to fellow lawmakers in Virginia last month, Finchem appeared by video from Phoenix to testify in support.

Election and document security experts said the proposals raised numerous practical problems, regardless of the company providing the technology. For one, it is not clear whether vote-tabulating machines currently in use and certified by federal regulators could read paper containing all the markers envisioned in the proposed bills. For another, the bills do not address what kind of devices would be required to spot and authenticate the special holograms and inks they would require be embedded into ballots — a particularly pressing issue given the suspicion with which many ordinary citizens now view the vote-counting process.

“What is that thing? Is it a scanner? Is it a black light?” asked Jen Marson, the executive director of the Arizona Association of Counties, which opposes the measure. “Because counties don’t want to be in a…