"Voting systems should [...] not permit anyone, including the voters themselves, to learn how they voted" What could possibly be the benefit of that?
By only allowing you alone into the voting booth, not allowing you to show your ballot to anyone, collecting the ballots in a sealed ballot box that's located in public that anonymizes the votes
> Even if votes aren't all logged, you can still be tortured for the answer.
No, you can't if there is no way for you to prove how you voted.
> I would much rather the country have an individual coercion problem than a mass voting fraud problem.
Why would one have anything to do with the other?
Also, one way to keep a country free from individual coercion problems is by having a reliable election process.
If there is no possible way for you or me to know (edit: prove) if I'm telling the truth, how is that worth your time and energy? It's not.
The benefit of a secret ballot is that it greatly reduces, if not removes, the incentive for coercion.
A durable record that maps votes to voters does not prevent voter fraud, it enables it.
1. Mobster goes in to vote but doesn't put it in the box - he takes the blank ballot paper outside with him.
2. He fills the vote on the ballot and gives it to the coerced voter 1. He expects a blank ballot back, or else. He has his goons watching the voter throw the real ballot in the box, or else.
3. Using the new blank ballot he goes to coerced voter 2, and the cycle continues.
Of course this is hard to scale.
I've been a scrutineer in a polling room. I could watch and challenge anything except the marking of a ballot. And I did. So did other scrutineers. The odds of the mobster keeping a rotating scheme without detection approach zero with great rapidity, especially since staying in the ballot after casting your vote is not permitted.
https://www-m.cnn.com/2016/10/29/politics/poll-watchers-moni...
Also, a voter who is being intimidated by a mobster could just walk up to a poll worker or police officer and report it.
A bit difficult since there are officials watching you put the ballot into the box. Or, gee, that's weird, failing to put the ballot into the box.
What happens if a white piece of paper is found? Do all the votes in the box get cancelled?
- Key: Encrypted SSN
- Value: Unencrypted Vote
Coercion could be a problem but with enough humans seems unlikely to be effective without the details of the conspiring entity to leak. If here are 10 jurors or a few judges coercion matters because it is easy to cover up. Coercion at scale has never occurred. Coercing any double digit percentage of 300 MM voters through violence or bribes or etc will leak based on the law of large numbers. Conspiracies stop being theories when they are validated by thousands/millions of people.
Social pressure is a bit trickier. It does force any minority voice to reconsider their vote. However, this isn’t different from most of history where a violent or non-violent revolution occurs. Most people lie about their opinion officially but build consensus privately. Until a point where the scale tips and both opinions are appropriate and debatable.
Retaliation is the biggest issue. But we already have some pretty good laws in place around discrimination based on politics. We can improve those, but also as a society we need to get better at debate without retaliation and hiding opinions doesn’t help that societal improvement.
It was made secret because all the problems you say aren't important, were very important.
I've been around too many women in abusive relationships to feel comfortable with that approach.
Voters don't need to be able to verify their vote post-election because a) they cast their ballot, so they can just remember who they voted for, and b) they can't change their decision, so there is no need to have a record of it.
Force them to vote by mail, watch them fill out the ballot (or fill it out for them), and mail it in.
You basically need to hold someone hostage or under total surveillance from when the ballot is mailed to when the polls are closed to avoid them just sending in their actual ballot afterwards.
With an electronic voting system the window of time you have to hold someone hostage is much shorter - simply force their vote an hour before the polls close and then hold them prisoner for the hour.
It means that you before the voting date go to a public office, a consulate in a foreign country, etc., show you ID, go into a voting booth and votes, and they put you vote into an envelope, that is sealed and mailed to voting place.
Or that two appointed volunteers goes to e.g., a assisted living facility and witness residents voting and placing their vote in a envelope that is then sealed and mailed to a voting place.
I’m not saying fraud is rampant, but there’s no denying the fact that on the individual level fraud and coercion are much easier to achieve when voting is done outside the polling booth.
I wouldn't recommend vote by mail for Mexico, where there is widespread vote buying even with secret ballots, but for the US it seems to me that vote by mail is likely to be more representative and increase the chance that voters will research the candidates as they are voting. No system is perfect so it is a question of what tradeoffs seem to make the most sense for particular situations.
Voting systems should provide confidence to voters that votes are counted correctly, but not permit anyone, including the voters themselves, to learn how they voted after the ballot is cast.