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Excellent idea. With de-anonymized voting, the not at all corrupt, totally non-violent ruling regime would never take advantage of the added ability to know and

Excellent idea. With de-anonymized voting, the not at all corrupt, totally non-violent ruling regime would never take advantage of the added ability to know and threaten specific people who voted for the opposition. As should be obvious, anonymous voting may be far from perfect if other parts of the electoral process are deeply rigged, but it at least prevents the blatant dangers of being personally afraid to even cast a vote against the leader even if you know your vote might get papered over with electoral rigging. A government like Venezuela's wouldn't care if that level of transparency made their vote counts look like even more obvious frauds. Its electoral victories already look bad and it doesn't stop anything they do. But at least they can't tacitly coerce voters into not even casting the "wrong" vote.

osigurdson 2y ago
>> threaten specific people who voted for the opposition This is Venezuela. If the people want the country back, they can't expect to simply lead regular lives. >> But at least they can't tacitly coerce voters into not even casting the "wrong" vote. Everything is a trade-off. I believe it is harder to coerce voters than to not bother looking at the votes at all and declaring victory.
- Someone 2y ago
  With anonymous voting, resistance can grow over time. Election #1 may see 1% of voters vote against the despot. Encouraged by that, the people increases that to 10% in election #2. Further encouragement sees that go to 60% in election #3. With non-anonymous voting, the people would still be encouraged by that 1%, but also seeing 1% of voters lose their job/get beaten/go to jail/… puts a serious damper on that encouragement leading to “I’ll vote against next time”. That’s why non-anonymous voting doesn’t work against despots.
  - osigurdson 2y ago
    >> That’s why non-anonymous voting doesn’t work against despots I think this can be shorted to "voting doesn't work against despots".
- southernplaces7 2y ago
  >This is Venezuela. If the people want the country back, they can't expect to simply lead regular lives. Really, so in order to change their government they should be forced into even worse miseries of being exposed as so-called traitors to the ruling regime by having their specific vote known? What ridiculous logic. Anonymous voting at least gives that modest avenue of protest towards a change that might not require a personal blood sacrifice. It's grotesque to push for even more risk against civilians. Your last sentence on the other hand is a complete non sequitur.

osigurdson 2y ago

>> threaten specific people who voted for the opposition This is Venezuela. If the people want the country back, they can't expect to simply lead regular lives. >> But at least they can't tacitly coerce voters into not even casting the "wrong" vote. Everything is a trade-off. I believe it is harder to coerce voters than to not bother looking at the votes at all and declaring victory.

Someone 2y ago
With anonymous voting, resistance can grow over time. Election #1 may see 1% of voters vote against the despot. Encouraged by that, the people increases that to 10% in election #2. Further encouragement sees that go to 60% in election #3. With non-anonymous voting, the people would still be encouraged by that 1%, but also seeing 1% of voters lose their job/get beaten/go to jail/… puts a serious damper on that encouragement leading to “I’ll vote against next time”. That’s why non-anonymous voting doesn’t work against despots.
- osigurdson 2y ago
  >> That’s why non-anonymous voting doesn’t work against despots I think this can be shorted to "voting doesn't work against despots".
southernplaces7 2y ago
>This is Venezuela. If the people want the country back, they can't expect to simply lead regular lives. Really, so in order to change their government they should be forced into even worse miseries of being exposed as so-called traitors to the ruling regime by having their specific vote known? What ridiculous logic. Anonymous voting at least gives that modest avenue of protest towards a change that might not require a personal blood sacrifice. It's grotesque to push for even more risk against civilians. Your last sentence on the other hand is a complete non sequitur.