Yesterday I filled out and mailed my ballot in some upcoming local elections. Washington State, where I live, doesn’t allow in-person voting, so I had no choice.
As I’ve said before, mail-in voting is a bad idea, because it effectively abolishes the secret ballot. Anybody who bribes or intimidates voters can check ballots before they’re dispatched, thus verifying that orders were obeyed.
Here in Washington, the attack on the secret ballot goes further. The envelope shows the voter’s name and address, and there isn’t a second, anonymous envelope into which the ballot is inserted. Instead, it can be put into a “sleeve”, which isn’t sealed and can’t be. The instructions emphasize, too, that hiding the ballot inside it is optional.
Hence, whoever opens voters’ envelopes can easily remove ballots, read them and put them back without any possibility of detection. The only preventive is the presence of watchers from the other party – not very effective in areas like Seattle, where there aren’t a lot of Republicans (or, for that matter, in the solidly GOP parts of the state where Democrats are thin on the ground).
Even for a well-crafted mail-in ballot, secrecy is optional, but at least the option is the voter’s. Whether ballots are secret in Washington depends on the honesty and good will of the political operatives who count the votes.
N.B.: The secretary of state who is responsible for this ballot design (a Republican, I regret to say) just resigned her office “to take a key election-security position in President Joe Biden’s administration”.
“Security” – You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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