from Hacker News

What Americans lost when we abandoned the secret ballot

by TheMonarchist on 1/25/22, 2:24 AM with 54 comments

• by josephcsible on 1/25/22, 3:35 AM

  IMO, right now we're in the worst of both worlds. The ballot is secret enough that fraud is possible, but non-secret enough that coercion is possible. If we don't want to restrict non-in-person voting back to how it was in 2016, then maybe we should make everyone's votes completely public. At least then, any fraud would be immediately and obviously apparent.

• by Barrin92 on 1/25/22, 6:26 AM

  The counterargument that poll watchers themselves may be partisan seems vague. How does this not apply to anything? Maybe they manipulated the ballots, maybe they reported the wrong numbers etc..

  There's always a bureaucratic apparatus involved in processing an election and mail voting doesn't strike me as particularly exceptional. Why does the author trust that the French civil service is non-partisan enough?

  Here in Germany mail voting works exactly like described, outer ballot verifies identity, inner ballot contains the vote. There are always, I believe nine people required to be present when the envelops are separated to check on each other. To believe there is a systemic, effort across countless of voting regions with different demographics seems kind of conspiratorial.

• by euroderf on 1/25/22, 2:49 PM

  Coercion is in principle a valid concern. So like, make sure the local board of elections has an office open in the days before the election where any voter can come in, present ID, have their mail-in ballot destroyed, and cast a new ballot.

• by cryptonector on 1/25/22, 4:35 PM

  Why was this flagged?