Question

Why should the voting be secret?​

Answer 1

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Whether you vote in person or by mail this year, you probably see casting your vote privately as an essential part of the democratic process. But as father-and-son historians Malcolm and Tom Crook explain, that wasn’t always how we viewed it.

Historically, the Crooks write, people often cast their votes publicly, often out loud, on election days that resembled carnivals with free-flowing food, drink, and music. Looking at voting systems in France, England, and the United States before the nineteenth century, the Crooks do find some examples of secret voting. For example, in 1607 Pontefract, England, authorities prepared voting papers for each voter, collected them in a box, and burned them after the election to make sure handwriting couldn’t be identified. But this was the exception, not the rule.

Answer 2

The secrecy of the ballot, a crucial basic element of representative democracy, is under threat. Attempts to make voting more convenient in the face of declining turnout – and the rise of the “ballot selfie” – are making it harder to guarantee secrecy.

The secrecy of the ballot, a crucial basic element of representative democracy, is under threat. Attempts to make voting more convenient in the face of declining turnout – and the rise of the “ballot selfie” – are making it harder to guarantee secrecy.Leading scholars James Johnson and Susan Orr go back to basics to analyze the fundamental issues surrounding the secret ballot, showing how secrecy works to protect voters from coercion and bribery. They argue, however, that this protection was always incomplete: faced with effective ballot secrecy, powerful actors turned to manipulating turnout – buying presence or absence at the polls – to obtain their electoral goals. The authors proceed to show how making both voting and voting in secret mandatory would foreclose both undue influence and turnout manipulation. This would enhance freedom for voters by liberating them from coercion or bribery in their choice of both whether and how to vote.

${\large{\mathcal{\orange{Have \: a \: nice \: day \: ahead}}}}$