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“Vote secrecy” refers to the inability for an attacker to know who you voted for, not that you voted. Checking whether your vote was counted gives you an answer

“Vote secrecy” refers to the inability for an attacker to know who you voted for, not that you voted. Checking whether your vote was counted gives you an answer to the latter, not the former. In other words, it’s not possible to prove who you voted for after the fact unless you took pictures (or some other copy).

pacala 6y ago
What keeps an attacker from: Open the ballot envelope and the secrecy envelope Note who you voted for Pack the secrecy envelope and the ballot envelope Use the vote information in whatever way they see fit ? Variation: Hey grandpa Joe, I'm here to help you vote Note who you voted for Help you pack the secrecy envelope and the ballot envelope Use the vote information in whatever way they see fit
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  I don’t know how other states do it, but I’m assuming you’re given a “ballot ID” that your vote is associated with (instead of your name). So if someone opened your vote-by-mail ballot, all they’d have is your ballot ID, so they wouldn’t know who voted for who. Also, what stops someone from doing that with the current voting system? We have computers do the counting with little to no oversight; They could easily be programmed to report people who “voted the wrong way.” With regards to your variation, that’s an inherent weakness of vote-by-mail, yes. There’s not much that can be done about that other than outlawing vote-by-mail.[^a] [^a]: Due to the way the Constitution is written, the power to decide the method of voting is not with the federal government. As such, the Tenth Amendment delegates that power to the states. Meaning, the power to require “secret ballots” rests with the states, and many do not have such requirements in their Constitutions. It also means that the federal government can’t outlaw vote-by-mail without a Constitutional amendment.
  - pacala 6y ago
    A political machine that can make use of the 'who did Joe voted for' information is likely to have access to the ballot id database and link 'ballot id 43abfd32' to Joe. On voting machines, good point. We should not use voting machines either.
    - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
      Then what exactly should we do? Physical ballot boxes? We can imagine all sorts of ways to tamper with votes that way, surely. Even if there's a paper trail, doesn't somebody somewhere have the ability to tamper with it? We can surely propose a flaw in every possible voting system, can't we? It seems to me your criticisms very much fall into "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good" territory. States have conducted some version of vote-by-mail or absentee balloting for decades, and there's no evidence I'm aware of that either of these have, in practice, materially increased voter fraud. Furthermore, studies on existing voter fraud conducted by groups like the Brennan Center for Justice and the Heritage Foundation have concluded the incident rates are around 0.0025% -- and that's the high end of the estimates. Even if your concern that a push to move most states to vote-by-mail in the 2020 election causes that number to go up substantially proves valid, how likely is it, truly, that it increases by the two orders of magnitude it would take to bring it up to a quarter of a percent -- and that such an incredible increase goes essentially unnoticed and unchallenged?
      - pacala 6y ago
        Exactly. We should not trade off the weakening of the voting process for convenience. The voting process deserves to be as strong as we can possibly make it. In person, on paper, on a weekend day.
        golf1052 6y ago
        With the processes already in place for states that have vote by mail is their fraud rate actually higher than states that have in person voting? This is a cost benefit analysis, there are known upsides with no proven downsides and the only downsides seem to be unproven.

pacala 6y ago

What keeps an attacker from: Open the ballot envelope and the secrecy envelope Note who you voted for Pack the secrecy envelope and the ballot envelope Use the vote information in whatever way they see fit ? Variation: Hey grandpa Joe, I'm here to help you vote Note who you voted for Help you pack the secrecy envelope and the ballot envelope Use the vote information in whatever way they see fit

colejohnson66 6y ago
I don’t know how other states do it, but I’m assuming you’re given a “ballot ID” that your vote is associated with (instead of your name). So if someone opened your vote-by-mail ballot, all they’d have is your ballot ID, so they wouldn’t know who voted for who. Also, what stops someone from doing that with the current voting system? We have computers do the counting with little to no oversight; They could easily be programmed to report people who “voted the wrong way.” With regards to your variation, that’s an inherent weakness of vote-by-mail, yes. There’s not much that can be done about that other than outlawing vote-by-mail.[^a] [^a]: Due to the way the Constitution is written, the power to decide the method of voting is not with the federal government. As such, the Tenth Amendment delegates that power to the states. Meaning, the power to require “secret ballots” rests with the states, and many do not have such requirements in their Constitutions. It also means that the federal government can’t outlaw vote-by-mail without a Constitutional amendment.
- pacala 6y ago
  A political machine that can make use of the 'who did Joe voted for' information is likely to have access to the ballot id database and link 'ballot id 43abfd32' to Joe. On voting machines, good point. We should not use voting machines either.
  - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
    Then what exactly should we do? Physical ballot boxes? We can imagine all sorts of ways to tamper with votes that way, surely. Even if there's a paper trail, doesn't somebody somewhere have the ability to tamper with it? We can surely propose a flaw in every possible voting system, can't we? It seems to me your criticisms very much fall into "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good" territory. States have conducted some version of vote-by-mail or absentee balloting for decades, and there's no evidence I'm aware of that either of these have, in practice, materially increased voter fraud. Furthermore, studies on existing voter fraud conducted by groups like the Brennan Center for Justice and the Heritage Foundation have concluded the incident rates are around 0.0025% -- and that's the high end of the estimates. Even if your concern that a push to move most states to vote-by-mail in the 2020 election causes that number to go up substantially proves valid, how likely is it, truly, that it increases by the two orders of magnitude it would take to bring it up to a quarter of a percent -- and that such an incredible increase goes essentially unnoticed and unchallenged?
    - pacala 6y ago
      Exactly. We should not trade off the weakening of the voting process for convenience. The voting process deserves to be as strong as we can possibly make it. In person, on paper, on a weekend day.
      - golf1052 6y ago
        With the processes already in place for states that have vote by mail is their fraud rate actually higher than states that have in person voting? This is a cost benefit analysis, there are known upsides with no proven downsides and the only downsides seem to be unproven.