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To prevent coercion, it's not sufficient to allow anonymity; you have to disallow means by which a person can prove how they voted.

• smokeyj 10y ago
  How true is this? Somebody could just take a picture of their ballot (under the threat of violence presumably). Sure they're not supposed to, but at this point we're relying on legislation - where the legislation could say employers aren't allowed to ask for employees voting wallets. Maybe I'm missing something.
  • vertex-four 10y ago
    If you mess up your ballot sheet, you can ask for a replacement - at least in the UK. Your original ballot sheet gets recorded specially as having been replaced, and you get a new one which gets counted. The result is that you can discreetly take a photo of your ballot sheet and then go ask for a new one if you're being threatened.
  • geofft 10y ago
    The penalty for taking a picture of your ballot is on you, not the person asking for the picture, and it's at the time the record is created, not when someone asks for it. So, it's perfectly plausible and defensible for me to say "There was a poll monitor, I couldn't take a ballot selfie, sorry." That is much simpler than saying "Hey, 911, my boss just asked me for my ballot proof." (The other thing is that photos of ballots have only become a serious threat in the last few years, and at the moment there's not really voter coercion through those photos, as far as we know. If it becomes a problem, I expect a bigger crackdown on it.)