Is the Secret Ballot Dead?
November 6, 2020
Could one American in a thousand formulate a coherent argument against the secret ballot? Everyone agrees that it is an essential safeguard against intimidation and bribery. Ward heelers can offer cash for votes. Thugs can threaten. Bosses can put workers in fear of their jobs. Husbands can domineer. That’s all useless if Jack can’t verify that Jill kept her promise to put her mark next to a particular name.
But in 2020 America, Jack can verify it. He can watch Jill as she fills out her ballot, or he can fill it out for her and drop it into the mailbox.
In the Roman Republic, which conducted elections by secret ballot throughout the century that preceded its demise, the richest and most influential men had little objection to the ballot – so long as secrecy was optional and therefore ineffective. We have come to much the same state of affairs.
Oddly, though, one hardly ever hears this point raised in arguments about mail-in voting. Defenders of the practice think it sufficient to insist that fraud, in the sense of phony or altered ballots, is rare. American politicians have, as we all know, consistently been figures of unblemished virtue who would no more steal a vote than do favors for a campaign contributor, so it’s plausible that they would shrink from tampering with votes cast by mail.
Yet even after we’ve ruled out the possibility of fraud, are we comfortable with jettisoning secrecy, with exposing every citizen to the risk that someone whom he can’t afford to, or simply doesn’t wish to, displease will demand to see his vote? That’s where we are today. True, we’ve barely stepped onto the road. It has a long way to go, but the destination is unmistakable.
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.