End the "secret" ballot and make ballots public to make elections real again

Liberty Election Reform & Political Integrity
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Others have identified the problem of intimidation, but arguably the darker threat is vote-buying:

Dear Mr. Brown,

Your public voting record indicates you have not voted in the past three presidential elections. However, if you vote in the upcoming election, and vote for the Democratic candidate, you will receive an envelope containing $500 in hundred dollar bills within seven business days after your county clerk has released the publicly available ballot scans.

Your anonymous friend

I find the prospect of this genuinely terrifying.

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22

You can verify your ballot online at least where i live in Vermont. I checked mine. Not sure every state is like that but my state isn’t that big, and we are always behind times so if we have it I’m sure most states do.

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The biggest problems in elections is transparency within the whole system, 3rd-party vendors, and unaccountability for the SOEs and SOSs who refuse to abide by the statutes and laws. What you see in a voting precinct is NOT where you are going to see a problem usually. Unaccountable and unelected vendors control most of the election process. Dirty voter rolls and sending VBM ballots to undeliverable addresses is ILLEGAL, yet nothing is done to hold officials accountable. Also, NO vetting is done on voter applications. If I filled out an application to work for you, do I just show up the next day because I filled out an application??? You are supposed to be VETTED for a good address, a legal residency, a legal citizen, etc. NONE of that is happening.

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I actually like this very much! I’ve always wondered why we don’t get a receipt, since it’s supposed to be secret, why not have a receipt if things go wrong, people can prove who they voted for… I mean, any other thing you do, you get some sort of receipt or invoice for soooo… Anyhow, kudos to you for speaking this out.

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Took me a moment to realize that was merely a theoretical letter rather than something that has actually happened.

Yeah, that is a terrifying idea, and a genuinely real problem if how people voted were genuinely public knowledge.

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I agree. We’re all just going to have to get comfortable with TRANSPARENCY, in many more ways than we have before. It is intimately related to TRUTH & HONESTY and that’s definitely where we need to be.

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Agreed. We need leaders with the strength and conviction to publicly oppose the evils that plague us. Manipulated plebeians and subversive cowards have gamed the secret ballot system for too long.

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28

Voting must never have personal consequences otherwise you can easily lose your freedom of choice (silent free speech). Ballots must remain secret to ensure people can vote as they want instead of being influenced by peer pressure, money or ???.

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I see what you are getting at… but everyone shouldn’t be able to see how you vote. Instead, I would support a requirement that elections are fully auditable. My individual election form should be serialized, so that it can be tied back to me as an individual to conduct partial audits of voter authenticity. But the database that connects me and my vote should be only legally accessible to auditors and through legal discovery.

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I tossed this idea around too and most of my pushback, like I’ve read on your post here, was related to political retaliation. Hopefully my post can create more conversation around this idea. I don’t think it’s a bad idea, but I can’t necessarily say it’s a good idea either so hopefully conversation helps at least myself get closer to a conclusion on it.

I think enacting some laws in place that harshly punished retaliation for voting for the “wrong side” would alleviate some of these issues, but then you’d have to be able to prove you were wronged for that particularly reason and I can’t imagine that being easy. I also think this is an issue because of the current political climate of our era. Most people don’t have the ability to talk politics without getting hyper emotional, upset, mad, or unreasonable. Party politics has ruined the ability to have conversations on political topics in America in my opinion. Now if our culture turned around and we could talk about politics openly then I think public elections wouldn’t be an issue because there would most likely not be the hate and division amongst those with differing ideas. However, I would also make the case that maybe a stolen election might not be as much of an issue to worry about either, but I could be wrong. I think it really is rooted in the integrity of our country and right now our politicians don’t have that. When majority of congress is worth multiple millions a piece there’s definitely something going on that’s corrupt.

Overall the narrative of the whole process would have to change so that people were encouraged to talk about it, everyone debated ideas from FACTUAL information and not the bs the news feeds the masses, and having a party system would have to go away and instead there should be no parties and just an individual that runs for office to represent THE PEOPLE and not just the democrats or republicans.

Thoughts?

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31

Both of you have very valid points.

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Blockchain voting, combined with Zero-Knowledge Proofs and other cryptographic techniques, can enable transparent vote tallying while maintaining voter privacy. Each voter could verify that their vote was correctly recorded and counted without revealing their identity. By introducing a ‘citizen chain’ (and a corresponding ‘death chain’ to remove deceased voters), we could further ensure that only legitimate voters participate, thereby preventing fraud like double voting or the use of ‘fake’ identities. These measures would significantly strengthen the integrity and security of the voting process.

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33

It’s generally accepted that there are three criteria for “free and fair” elections:

  • Only eligible voters are allowed to cast ballots
  • Those ballots are counted as cast
  • The secrecy of the ballot caster is maintained

What if we could convince you that we can achieve all of those things without sacrificing the important protections of ballot secrecy? Would that change your opinion?

Imagine this, what if each voter effectively submitted two ballots, the original, and a digital copy made from the original (a “ballot audit image”), verified by the voter as being accurate at the time of casting, with measures in place to ensure the images can not be modified once submitted (yes, this is doable), and the “audit images” have an entirely separate authority (custodian) responsible for its chain of custody. We could duplicate this “ballot image audit database” to as many custodians as you feel necessary to ensure that no one could get away with changing these ballot images without being detected.

These audit images are not part of the counting, they are a separate copy of all the ballots used for independent auditing purposes.

“The system” would count the original ballots, and these audit copies would be made available to the public by each of the independent custodians (most likely by download from a website) at the same time the results are announced.

Citizens can then compare the number of ballots counted, as reported by the official election results, to the number of recorded “audit images” (ballots submitted), as well as do their own count of the audit image database using image processing software which many competent people could create in the current era.

For mail-in ballots we might be able to devise an electronic system that allows the voter to use a smartphone to upload a photo of their ballot before mailing it in that also protects their ballot secrecy, but let’s assume we aren’t ready to go that far as I think we can do a reasonably trustworthy process without that.

Assuming mail-in ballots are going to require some level of trust, I propose that as the ballots are removed from their secrecy envelopes they have their “audit image” taken at that time. Individuals in the receiving office are responsible for verifying that the audit image taken matches the selections on the secret ballot they are holding. These individuals do not count the ballots, they are “signing off” under penalty of perjury or something similar, that the “audit image” matches the ballot they are processing.

There are various versions of who these audit imagers could be to ensure trust, but I think, given the number of individuals required to process the mail-in ballots, if there were any shenanigans at this step, given how specific and limited it is, it would be difficult to modify the audit images in a way that “the cheaters”, whoever they might be, wouldn’t be discovered.

This mail-in image audit database is likewise copied to independent custodians and published alongside the election results.

There are other possible configurations we can come up with that can protect the integrity of our elections without sacrificing the highly valuable ballot secrecy.

It is not, as you imply, impossible or impractical.

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34

Another reason is the opposite of ‘retaliation’, ‘vote buying’.

If I can see that you voted a particular way, I can reward you for having done that and I can be assured that I am only rewarding “the right people”.

Further, think about the endemic “shy Trump voter” that would never publicly say they would vote for Trump because of the social shunning that would occur. This isn’t the same kind of systematic retaliation you’re envisioning. It’s not illegal to dislike someone because of their politics and you can’t legislate that. You can be fired from a private company for things you say online and political donations you give; why should it be illegal to be fired for how you vote (you aren’t representative of the kind of person that company wants working for them)?

Political viewpoint is not a protected class.

Imagine you’re a public figure like an actor, music artist, podcast or tv personality, sports star or anyone else who appeals to a large cross-political audience. How you voted would be a subject of great interest to your audience, and could likely change how they feel about you, impacting your career.

Currently you can say “My vote is kept between me and the voting booth and I have fans from all walks of life, I don’t want any of them to think I play favorites based on our politics”.

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To start off before I address your post I was tossing the idea around I neither favored it or hated it, it was something I was just exploring. Overall though I see what you’re saying and that was one of the reasons I couldn’t support it is the two way street on prosecuting/rewarding particular voters. Maybe the discussion should be more around how do we ensure the integrity of an election?

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Yes, this is where I believe/agree our efforts are best placed.
And I’m most interested in systems that ensure cheating can be detected over entirely preventing the cheating in the first place.

Here’s a reply I put in this topic on one idea that I think can provide a lot of assurances on the counting side without altering the system much at all, and I think it’s difficult to come up with meaningful arguments against (but also why it needs to be discussed).

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I agree with you except for REQUIRING a person to vote. Voting is a Constitutional RIGHT, and Every American has the RIGHT to express that RIGHT or to Not Express that RIGHT. FORCING someone to Vote would infringe on that Right.

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38

As much as I agree with the importance of voting and wish that more people did vote (as informed voters), I agree that making voting mandatory is not a good idea.

While not voting can be an act of ignorance or apathy, choosing not to vote can itself be a kind of vote all its own, especially in places where there’s no option for a write-in vote.

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Are you required to get a driver’s license to drive? :thinking: If you want to live in the United States I believe it should be a requirement.

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Driving isnt a Right, its a Privilage and it isnt mandatory to get a Drivers License. You can Choose to not Drive and walk or Ride the Bus. If we make Voting Mandatory, whats next? Mandating Church attendance? Slippery Slope.