A lawsuit filed this morning alleges up to one million voters in many of the state’s smaller counties were deprived of casting a secret ballot in the 2008 and other elections.

Lawyers for four voters and the Green Party of San Juan County announced the filing of the suit challenging use of bar codes to track the receipt and handling of mail-in ballots.

The suit filed against Secretary of State Sam Reed targets use of bar code identifiers by Vote Here in its mail-in ballot tracking (MIBT) system. Twenty-one counties use the system, according to the lawsuit.

Tim White of San Juan County is one of the petitioners. In his affidavit he wrote about his experience:

“When I looked at the on-line tracking of my ballot, I was surprised to see that MiBT listed my ballot as received, but not counted. Upon further research, we found that MiBT reported some ballots as counted before being received; and others as received and counted without ever being sent out.”

Farther down he adds a little partisan twist:

“We have been told over and over that the secrecy of our ballots is being protected by the private corporations that provide the State’s election systems. But we don’t believe that any voter anywhere should have to rely upon VoteHere or any other private corporation to protect our fundamental right to a secret ballot, especially when VoteHere has deep ties to the Republican Party and partisan espionage operatives.