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0 pointsEugeneAZ8y ago0 comments

Public - i.e. everyone knows how others have voted - voting can be both precise and secure. Public voting can be done electronically, say, via encrypted SMS.

So why to bother with secrecy in the first place?

0 comments

yellowapple8y ago

Secret ballots protect voters from intimidation and blackmail. That particular bit of secrecy is absolutely essential in a democracy.

makeee8y ago

So you can't pay people to vote for a particular candidate.

EugeneAZOP8y ago

Do you know how people take photos of themselves voting at "secret-keeping" poll-stations? How about politicians, which publicly give lucrative promises to their particular electorate?

If they want to sell their vote - it is their choice. I'd only say that the right of citizens to secede from such a society must be respected too.

SilasX8y ago

>Do you know how people take photos of themselves voting at "secret-keeping" poll-stations?

That's illegal, and (somewhat contradictorily) not non-repudiable. You can take a picture of yourself with "ballot marked for candidate I'm paid/coerced to vote for" and then step right out and say "oops, I messed up my ballot, give me another one" and then submit that.

0xffff28y ago

Didn't SCOTUS recently uphold peoples right to take selfies in the ballot box? Seems that ship has already sailed in the US.

Also, California allows for absentee voting with no particular reason. I've voted in every election I've ever been eligible to vote in and I have never once set foot in a physical polling place.

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