> I live in California, where the voting method is vote-by-mail and you sign your ballot. That breaks anonymity right there, plus there's a barcode that matches

> I live in California, where the voting method is vote-by-mail and you sign your ballot. That breaks anonymity right there, plus there's a barcode that matches address and ballot for traceability, so in theory anyone involved in the election process could look at my ballot, cross-reference against address, and figure out how I vote They actually go through quite a bit of effort to prevent breaking anonymity. The incoming ballots are scanned and sorted by machine to record that they arrived. Later, signatures on the envelope are checked. The signature verified sealed ballots are then moved and fed into a high speed extractor separating the ballot from the envelope so the envelope label isn't visible, breaking any linkage between the ballot and the voter's identity. Ballots are stacked with other ballots, still folded and moved elsewhere to be counted. The empty envelopes are kept and scanned again. All of this happens with multiple people and on camera. The ballot barcodes don't record any unique information that can identify voters - they're just things like precinct, ballot language and page number.