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Just hypothetically, what if an election involved the voting agency thoroughly compiling a registry of every citizen in the country and somehow trying to regularly confirm that they existed and were alive, and then having people publicly declare well ahead of time who they would be voting for. The choices would be available to publicly view and you could change your choice as you wanted, but as the election date drew nearer, maybe they began phasing out certain people who initially seemed final in their choice. Gradually as the date drew nearer they would continue to finalize cohorts of votes until the last stragglers or indecisive people made up their final mind or otherwise abstained from voting.

The point is to not make elections such an inconvenience including traveling to polling stations, accusations of fraud, indecisiveness, low voter participation, and uncertain vote counting on a huge time-crunch. The downside would be that everybody knows who you are voting for, but a lot of people are already really open about that, and you could keep your cover until at least the last moment if you wanted to switch right before the end.

Is voter anonymity that important? I wonder if there are situations where lawmaking bodies function just fine given that people’s stances are widely known.

Julius Hamilton
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    This seems to be very opinion based as people have varied and strong opinions on secret or open ballots. You are also forgetting the factor of lying about who you actually voted for as well which people have been suspected of doing for various reasons. – Joe W Dec 08 '22 at 16:50
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    Hell, it's not even nefarious. Among my political friends, I'm up front in that in my first three votes for President of the United States, I had yet to vote for a candidate from the same party twice. I do not tell them in which election I voted for which party's candidate, nor do I tell them which third party I voted for. I do this to establish my swing voter cred. – hszmv Dec 08 '22 at 17:30
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    I'm thinking the downvote is because somebody didn't like the idea, not because the question is bad. The idea is bad, but knowing why is useful. – Boba Fit Dec 08 '22 at 17:49
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    @BobaFit It isn't a good idea to speculate on the reasons that people voted. – Joe W Dec 08 '22 at 17:58
  • In terms of disfavor for voter anonymity, I've always wondered why such an important thing doesn't come with a receipt and proof of count. I pass off the ballot and cross my fingers that it actually does what it's supposed to do. But voter blockchains poses an interesting way to create pseudo-anonymous voting and proof of count. Some people are fiddling with that. –  Dec 08 '22 at 20:40
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    Note that in the United States, although votes are not public, party registration often is. When people register to vote, they apparently may or must choose a party, and this registry is largely public. See also https://politics.stackexchange.com/q/34822/130 and https://politics.stackexchange.com/q/77075/130. – gerrit Dec 09 '22 at 07:36
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    @frеdsbend an important part of the secret ballot is not only that other people can't find out which way you voted without your consent but that you can't prove which way you voted at all. Imagine someone ran a "Vote for me and get $10" campaign using voting receipts as proof, or if an abusive husband demanded to see his wife's receipt to make sure she voted the right way. Secrecy means that these things can't work since anyone can just lie. – Princess Ada Dec 09 '22 at 09:32
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    It is worth remarking that accusations of electoral fraud at scale in the US and other mature democracies are typically unfounded. The US has reasonably strong checks and balances on its electoral processes, and there are democracies with even stronger checks and balances that still maintain a secret ballot. Politicians who want to make unfounded claims about the validity of an election are unlikely to be deterred by stronger checks and balances. – James_pic Dec 09 '22 at 10:48
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    @gerrit Cute way to poison the well... –  Dec 09 '22 at 16:13
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    @PrincessAda I'm not arguing against secret voting's benefits. I'm pointing out its pitfalls. –  Dec 09 '22 at 16:22
  • That seems an incredibly invasive and complex way to solve a problem that (a) isn't particularly bad to start with, and (b) could also be trivially solved with mail or online voting, if one was so inclined. – xLeitix Dec 09 '22 at 21:10
  • Public knowledge of how one voted was a method of ensuring 99%+ results for the leading party in eastern Europe – Hagen von Eitzen Dec 10 '22 at 21:35
  • "What if" questions are generally a bad fit for the StackExchange format. How are answers going to be judged? Could you even articulate an objective standard that you'll use to select a "best" answer? – Tom Dec 11 '22 at 00:33
  • "maybe they began phasing out certain people who initially seemed final in their choice." Who is "they", and what does "phase" mean? – Acccumulation Dec 11 '22 at 05:30

6 Answers6

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The main reason for the use of a Secret Ballot is to prevent bullying, blackmail, or bribery from influencing a person's vote. This could come from an abusive partner who wants to make sure their spouse votes the way they do, a candidate or their supporters trying to buy votes, or simple peer pressure ("My friends all support Alice, so I don't want them to know I'm voting for Bob").

Anonymity makes it much harder to control another person's vote - if you can't confirm how a person voted, you can't punish them for voting against your wishes or reward them for voting how you want.

Your system of "finalising" certain votes early also seems rather strange. It's not clear how they could identify which voters were really confident in their choices, and I'm not sure what the benefit is supposed to be anyway - if they really weren't going to change their minds then nothing is gained by preventing the option, and if they would have changed their vote then you've just forced them to vote for someone they don't want to.

Princess Ada
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    The secret ballot was implemented in the U.S. to stop the fraudulent practice of vote buying where organizations set up by political machines would offer to pay voters to vote for a candidate. With the list of who voted for whom, the machine new who to pay out to to reward. With a secret ballot, they have to pay the voter before the voter casts a ballot and have no way to know if the payment changed the vote. – hszmv Dec 08 '22 at 17:23
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    @hszmv What evidence do you have to back this up? My understanding is that it was more for voter intimidation tactics such as employment being impacted based on who you voted for. – Joe W Dec 08 '22 at 17:42
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    @JoeW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot#United_States The machine and payment scheme is difficult to document, but it was known to be occurring in the U.S. in the late 1800s. It was difficult to trace so the extent was not well document, but the secret ballot rendered it a non-viable way to rig the elections. – hszmv Dec 08 '22 at 18:21
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    @JoeW The secret ballots closed a lot of different abuses caused by open ballots, so it's not necessarily the case that one particular reason motivated demand for the switch. It was more likely that most people were of the opinion that "if I have to give up the cheats I approve of, at least I'm stopping the people who cheat in ways I disapprove of!). – hszmv Dec 08 '22 at 18:23
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    @hszmv I have seen that but it does not indicate why the change was made or suggest it was doing it to prevent people buying votes. There are likely many reasons this was done but I don't think there is evidence to suggest it was do to people buying votes as you can still do that with the current system. – Joe W Dec 08 '22 at 18:23
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    @JoeW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_buying Has some discussion on vote buying in the U.S. in the 19th century and how well known it was (in some places, candidates openly discussed buying votes) and how big the contributions to voters could be. – hszmv Dec 08 '22 at 18:28
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    @hszmv I am not saying vote buying didn't happen back then and doesn't happen today, just that I have not seen any evidence that links that to the change to a secret ballot and I don't see it in the links you have provided. – Joe W Dec 08 '22 at 18:47
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    That's also been the rationale behind the recent controversies over forbidding voters from taking selfies with their filled-in ballots -- so they can't prove to someone how they voted. – jeffronicus Dec 08 '22 at 19:06
  • @jeffronicus It think the bigger rational is preventing you from proving how someone else voted. – hszmv Dec 08 '22 at 22:57
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    Apparently, in the U.S. voter registration is public, including what party one has registered with. – gerrit Dec 09 '22 at 07:22
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    @gerrit Official registration for a party is only used to determine which party primary you can participate in (that's the party-specific "preelection" to determine who the party candidate in the main election is - in many states that's run by the state, rather than the party). There are generally few restrictions on freely changing it, and it has no bearing on who you actually vote for in the main election. (I know several people who are officially registered for the "other" party, solely to help nominate the least-worse opponent.) – R.M. Dec 09 '22 at 16:06
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    @hszmv voting has been secret in democracies for millennia (also mentioned in your wikipedia link, in the beginning of the same section you linked to). I really doubt that any specific event in recent history would be relevant given that the concept has been around for pretty much as long as the idea of voting itself. – terdon Dec 09 '22 at 20:10
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    @R.M. Now I'm pondering the ethicality to be registered for a party solely to help them nominate the most idiotic candidate. And I wonder how widespread this is - would certainly help to explain some events in recent years. – xLeitix Dec 09 '22 at 21:14
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    @xLeitix: I'm not sure how it was meant by R.M., but note that the part about "nominate the least-worse opponent" can be understood in two ways: Either, to try and nominate, as you say, the "most idiotic candidate", in a way to ensure their chances against your preferred party are poor. This does indeed sound ethically dubious. Or, to try and nominate a candidate who is, position-wise, the "least-worse" with respect to your political goals/preferences. That is, even if their party wins a seat, the person sent there may share at least some values with your preferred party. This sounds much ... – O. R. Mapper Dec 09 '22 at 21:49
  • ... less problematic to me. – O. R. Mapper Dec 09 '22 at 21:49
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    Could also add employers dictating employees. Probably not so common any longer, but while there were many live-in servants and large factories (early to mid 1900s), employers could have a disturbingly lot to say about their employees' free time. – Baard Kopperud Dec 10 '22 at 13:01
  • @O.R.Mapper it could also be try and nominate the most idiotic (or least competent) candidate, to limit the damage they can do from their seat in power if they win it. – bdsl Dec 10 '22 at 13:41
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    @bdsl: While theoretically true, I am not convinced there is a strong correlation between being the most idiotic or least competent on the one hand, and causing little damage on the other hand. If anything, a candidate known for being good at avoiding to do anything at all would be my preferred choice then ;) – O. R. Mapper Dec 10 '22 at 14:29
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Historically, voting in some places took place entirely publicly through a process as simple as everybody raising their hands. It was once this way in a variety of places such as city councils in Switzerland, and of course it was how things happened in ancient Athens.

So in Athens, it became very divisive. You could look across the courtyard and see who was getting in the way of your plans. And they could see you. The result was (as described in the histories of the Peloponnesian war, various factions were able to know who to work on through various means. Threats, bribes, etc., were frequent means of moving the total in a vote. Even foreign agents could move through the crowd and count votes for things they didn't like, and then proceed to shift the vote.

Boba Fit
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  • "It was once... Switzerland" — as far as I know, it is still like this in Switzerland. Has this changed recently? – gerrit Dec 09 '22 at 07:16
  • Early voting in the US was also almost always a public process. The tradition lives on in the Iowa Caucus, which is a fairly influential 'primary' that starts the election season. – eps Dec 09 '22 at 23:19
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    @gerrit: Switzerland being a federal nation, the various cantons and municipalities have considerable leeway in how they conduct voting. Most employ ballot box and mail, but a few cantons, and many smaller towns, continue to conduct business in open assembly. Overall though, democracy by assembly is less widespread than it used to be. For instance, in 1815, 8 cantons voted by assembly. Nowadays, there are only 2. – meriton Dec 10 '22 at 12:10
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Voter intimidation

A public voting system makes voter intimidation easy. Other answers have covered that, but here's a real-time example. Hershel Walker, who recently lost an election, was surprised when he didn't get 100% of the vote in his home county (he got 74%)...

“I’m gonna call the sheriff and have him find out who didn’t vote for me,” Walker said, according to one aide.

Whether he said it or not, the implications are absolutely terrifying. With an open record of how people voted, and presumably their addresses, voter intimidation and retribution would be trivial.

Threat to abuse victims

In order to verify your vote, it's not enough to just publish your name. How many "Michael Smith"s are out there? You'd also need to publish some other uniquely identifying information. You can't use their social security #, not everybody has one and being made public opens everyone up to identity fraud. Your address would seem obvious, "Michael Smith of 123 Elm St, Springfield, IL". Then you can identify yourself, and people can know what local and state elections you voted in.

This is, effectively, doxing every voter. If you're a victim or target of abuse, this is a nightmare. Your abuser(s) now know where you live and can physically harass you.

Scale and timeliness

what if an election involved the voting agency thoroughly compiling a registry of every citizen in the country and somehow trying to regularly confirm that they existed and were alive...

What you're proposing is something on the scale of the US Census which takes years. Your proposal is even larger because they have to keep going back multiple times, and it has to be done every two years.

But what you're proposing is already done with various voter registration systems around country. However, rather than trying to do it around every election it is an ongoing process.

Accusations of fraud

This is a solution in search of a problem. Despite accusations, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. All the many, many claims of voter fraud have lead to nothing. On the contrary, attempts to "fix" perceived voter fraud often leads to disenfranchising a much larger population. The systems in place work, but people make stuff up anyway. It's fair to say no system would be immune; they'd just make up new nonsense.

It seems the idea behind your proposal is that if the votes and registry were public then everyone can check their own votes. But current accusations are not focused in individual votes being changed, and those do have some merit with electronic voting machines.

The current trend in voter fraud accusations is around how one knows that the hundreds of millions of other votes are valid? How does one know all these people even exist?

You have to "thoroughly compiling a registry of every citizen in the country and somehow trying to regularly confirm that they existed and were alive". How do we know that list is accurate? How do we know all those people exist and are alive? How can we trust this enormous voting agency to not just make people up?! I can already see "citizen organized voter integrity teams" going into "certain neighborhoods" to "verify" that voters exist and harassing people who they claim shouldn't be allowed to vote.

This is an old, old problem with voter registration going back to accusations of going to a graveyard and registering dead voters.

Vote-by-mail

The point is to not make elections such an inconvenience including traveling to polling stations, accusations of fraud, indecisiveness, low voter participation, and uncertain vote counting on a huge time-crunch.

Vote-by-mail solves all those problems, except accusations of voter fraud, more on that in a moment. Every registered voter gets a ballot. You can do it from your home with plenty of time to research and discuss your options and opinions. There's no time crunch. You can get confirmation that your ballot was received. The ballots are paper and can be hand audited. Vote counting can start early to avoid an election day crunch and to provide opportunity to cure any mistakes.

With the extra benefit that your ballot is secret.

Vote-by-mail has received unfounded accusations of ballot box stuffing, sending multiple ballots, sending ballots to people who can't vote, sending ballots to dead people... your proposed voting agency is vulnerable to all those same accusations.

Schwern
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  • "vote counting can start early": As far as know these systems, verification of the voter and the uniqueness of his vote are done early, but the actual opening of envelopes and the evaluation of the ballot are started at the same time as the counting for the rest. This is to avoid early "leaking" of results to the public. – ccprog Dec 08 '22 at 20:20
  • @ccprog Like with everything in the US, it depends on the state or even county. Some can start counting early. Some can start verifying the ballots early to cure mistakes like missing signatures. Some are restricted until election day. Either way, none of this is inherent to vote-by-mail. – Schwern Dec 08 '22 at 20:55
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    also accusations of stealing/collecting ballots from mailboxes, convincing people to give you their ballots... – Esther Dec 09 '22 at 03:05
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    Related: https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/54940/what-fact-based-arguments-exist-that-mail-in-voting-would-lead-to-significantly – cbeleites unhappy with SX Dec 09 '22 at 13:56
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    "You can do it from your home with plenty of time to research and discuss your options and opinions." Indeed, I call the ballot-checker. He makes sure I fill it out correctly, put it in the envelope correctly, and gives me $100. He even mails it for me. – Wastrel Dec 09 '22 at 14:58
  • @Esther Which, it must be said, are only accusations. They are vanishingly rare. The proposed solution does not protect against similar issues. – Schwern Dec 09 '22 at 19:17
  • @Wastrel The proposed solution does just that. There is a person who comes to your home, makes sure you've filled out your ballot correctly, and takes it with them. – Schwern Dec 09 '22 at 19:18
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    There has been no systematic examination of mail-in-voting to assure that it is low in fraud. There have been people arrested-tried-and-convicted for fraud connected to mail-in-voting. And there are huge numbers of reports of people being sent mail-in ballots when they are not eligible, multiple ballots, ballots from out-of-state, etc. Indeed, an entire state rep primary was tossed and re-done because of mail-in-vote problems. So "vanishingly rare" is clearly wrong. – Boba Fit Dec 09 '22 at 19:36
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    @BobaFit Which primary was that? – Schwern Dec 10 '22 at 01:16
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    @BobaFit All voter fraud in the US is vanishingly rare. Here is a systemic examination of voter fraud from 2000-2012 finding "2,068 alleged election-fraud cases" out of about 1 billion ballots. Then there was Trump's Election Integrity Commission which, despite being lead by voter fraud enthusiasts, found nothing. – Schwern Dec 10 '22 at 01:31
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    @Schwem In my scenario, it's an employee of a political party who makes sure you vote the way he wants. He's paying you for that. This kind of voter fraud is almost undetectable. I'm not so naive that I think it doesn't happen already. The parties spend millions on campaign advertising, and paying $100,000 for 10,000 guaranteed votes (enough to change the outcome of an election) would be a good investment. I might as well mention that I am against mail-in voting. – Wastrel Dec 10 '22 at 14:39
  • @Wastrel 10,000 people are being paid $10 to vote and not a single one has come forward? That's a lot of value! And the people who refuse the money, they're all keeping quiet? That sort of voter fraud is trivial to detect: big money trail, lots of people involved, lots of witness. My state (Oregon) has been 100% vote by mail for decades. – Schwern Dec 10 '22 at 18:12
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    It never fails that people believe that their goverment representatives are simultaneously completely incompetent in every way, and yet capable of maintaining elaborate complex conspiracies which are completely undetectable. – barbecue Dec 10 '22 at 20:30
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    I'm not sure if it got mentioned in the comments anywhere, but vote-by-mail means giving up some level of privacy in your vote. Not because your vote can be identified as yours after the fact, but someone who you live with can force you to show them your ballot (or just mark it up themselves. It's still better than a public vote, but it's not as private as an in-person secure voting booth. So it's not the perfect solution, either. – Bobson Dec 11 '22 at 09:04
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    @barbecue: The concerns for mail voting I'm familiar with are not necessarily directed at concerted government actions. It's more that "dad" makes "granddad" (and possibly "mum") vote correctly. Or the nurse "helps" her patients in the nursing home filling in the ballot sheets. (Which is why there's the possibility of mobile election districts: a proper election board with members from multiple parties making a tour of the nursing homes and hospitals, so people can have the usual vote-in-person procedure without the need to go anywhere far.) – cbeleites unhappy with SX Dec 11 '22 at 19:55
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I'm in where the general voting must be secret, i.e. a vote that is given openly is invalid and must be destroyed. The voter can then get a 2nd sheet and fill it in in the cabin. (There seems to be some leniency in practice wrt. incorrectly folded sheets, where one can see the cross as the sheet is put into the ballot box, and there has been a scandal years ago when the Hessian parliament had a vote in secret mode [most of their votes are done openly] but some members took mobile phone shots of their ballot).


We do have a historical comparison when election law changed from optionally secret to mandatory secret: Not a perfect comparison since a whole lot of other things besides the mode of election changed, but: Volkskammer elections in the GDR were not fully secret: it was not mandatory to use the election cabin (and doing so was noted and had repercussions afterwards) Also, no cross anywhere meant "yes" to the unified list. So it was easy to show publicly and for others to confirm agreement. Any "action" on the ballot (= easy to detect) meant therefore that the one who did so did not say "yes" to the existing system.

Rules changed for the very last one: election cabin use became mandatory making the election fully secret plus a number of further changes.

In the 1986 elections (old rules), the unified list was approved with 99.74% yes votes. In the (last) 1990 elections, the PDS (successor party of the previous state party SED) got 16,4% of the votes.
Of course, not all of this drop can be attributed only to the new full secrecy of the elections: the 99+% needed a combination of lack of secrecy and actual power of the SED (ability to actually repress those who would not clearly vote as desired) and also "yes" being the default option etc. And that power was largely lost by the time the 1990 elections came up.
But with fully secret elections that power cannot be abused in this way.

Update wrt @gerrit's comment: yes, GDR elections were rigged in other ways as well.

Here's a secondary source I found that cites Lindner, Bernd: Die demokratische Revolution in der DDR 1989/90 about the communal elections on May 7th, 1989. These were still done the old rules, but in hindsight first signs of what in the end lead to the reunification can be detected. In summary, there was proof of rigging of the results of up to 10 percent more disagreement than the official 1.15 %.

I provide some more context, since it shows how "nudging" by making it, errr, unpleasant for people to excercise their existing right to monitor the vote counting helped with the rigging of the results. IMHO this is very much in parallel to the on-topic question how voting secrecy which is only a right but not mandatory was basically non-existent in practice.

(my emphases)

Vor allem aber fanden sich am 7. Mai 1989 im ganzen Land Gruppen von Menschen zusammen, die entschlossen waren, von ihrem gesetzlich verbürgten Recht der Wahlkontrolle Gebrauch zu machen. Sie wollten nach Schließung der Wahllokale an der öffentlichen Auszählung der Stimmen teilnehmen. Es war ein offenes Geheimnis in der DDR, dass die bei Wahlen üblichen Ergebnisse (fast hundertprozentige Beteiligung der Wähler und nahezu vollständige Zustimmung zu den Kandidatenlisten der Nationalen Front) nicht auf einer reellen Basis beruhten. […] Niemand hatte bis 1989 gewagt, der SED- Führung und den ihr unterstellten Staatsorganen direkt nachzuweisen, dass sie Wahlergebnisse vorsätzlich fälschten. Gehörte dazu doch mehr als der entschlossene Mut eines Einzelnen. Ein wirklicher Nachweis über Wahlfälschungen konnte nur erbracht werden, wenn in nahezu allen Wahllokalen eines Ortes oder Wahlbezirkes neutrale Personen an der Auszählung der Stimmen beteiligt waren, um ihre Erkenntnisse anschließend zusammenzutragen und sie mit den in der regionalen Presse veröffentlichten offiziellen Wahlergebnissen vergleichen können. Das setzte gemeinsame Absprachen und einen hohen Organisationsgrad voraus - alles "Tatbestände", die in der DDR zu einer Kriminalisierung wegen "antisozialistischer Gruppenbildung" voll ausreichten. Um so erstaunlicher die Zahl der Kommunen und Wahllokale, in denen sich am Abend des 7.Mai 1989 Bürger einfanden, um die Auszählung der Stimmen zu überwachen. […] Die Ergebnisse der Überprüfung waren eindeutig. In nahezu allen Fällen konnte den Behörden Wahlfälschung nachgewiesen werden. Dabei hatte die SED-Führung schon klammheimlich "Zugeständnisse" an die Stimmung in der Bevölkerung gemacht: Das offiziell verkündete Endergebnis der Wahlen wies mit 1,15 Prozent den höchsten Anteil an Nein-Stimmen in der Geschichte der DDR auf. Blieben aber immer noch 98,85 Prozent Zustimmung für die Kandidaten der Nationalen Front (bei einer angeblichen Wahlbeteiligung von 98,78 Prozent). Dies widersprach deutlich den Ergebnissen der autonomen Wahlbeobachter. Die Differenz zu den offiziellen Angaben betrug in einigen Orten bis zehn Prozent.

Translation (by deepl translator and some editing from my side):

Most importantly, on May 7, 1989, groups of people gathered throughout the country determined to exercise their legally guaranteed right to monitor the election. They wanted to participate in the public counting of votes after the polling stations closed. It was an open secret in the GDR that the results usual in elections (almost one hundred percent voter participation and almost complete approval of the National Front's candidate lists [aka unified lists]) were not based on a real basis. [...] Until 1989, no one had dared to prove directly that the SED leadership and its subordinate state organs were deliberately falsifying election results. This required more than the determined courage of an individual. Real proof of electoral fraud could only be provided if neutral persons were involved in counting the votes in almost all polling stations in a town or electoral district, so that their findings could then be collated and compared with the official election results published in the regional press. This required joint agreements and a high degree of organization - all "facts"[German Tatbestände are legal facts, such as elements of a crime] that were fully sufficient in the GDR for being criminalized for "anti-socialist group formation." All the more astonishing was the number of municipalities and polling stations where citizens turned out on the evening of May 7, 1989, to supervise the counting of the votes. [...] The results of the monitoring were clear. In almost all cases, the authorities were proven to have falsified the elections. At the same time, the SED leadership had already made clandestine "concessions" to the mood of the population: the officially announced final result of the elections showed the highest percentage of "no" votes in the history of the GDR, 1.15 percent. However, there still remained 98.85 percent approval for the candidates of the National Front (with an alleged voter turnout of 98.78 percent). This clearly contradicted the results of the autonomous election observers. The difference from the official figures was as high as ten percent in some places.

Note that even if we could apply this rigging of actual votes guesstimate to the difference between the 1986 and 1990 elections, there are still other major differences besides manadory voting secrecy, from the whole situation to the fact that voters could for the first time choose among multiple options whom to vote for, and that those options proposed vastly different plans for the future.


It is well known that polls/predictions on elections can be quite off, and that highly contented elections are particularly difficult (remember Brexit, Trump 2016, in Germany we also had a few demoscopic predictions being widely off). For those predictions, people not openly admitting what they then vote (in secret) is one important known source of uncertainty, but again, not the only one.

More directly relevant data may be the differences between exit polls and actual election results. In particular for votes that go against the (perceived) public mainstream.

However, I only had a quick (and fruitess) search on this.


Not quantifyable, and only an anecdote. But for what it's worth, here's a personal experience:

I was member of a student association where management committee election rules specified secret election in a general assemby as the default mode - but also the additional possibility that a single candidate could also be elected by acclamation. Eventually, acclamation became in practice the usual mode of election. At some point there was a single candidate where several people would have liked to have a secret election because they thought the subgroup behind that candidate too powerful, but they did not dare to speak up openly. In the end, someone with "sufficiently neutral" standing heard, and requested secret voting in the assembly. IIRC, a more general discussion resulted, another candidate was found and the initial one did not get elected.

The "icing" on this story: this took place about 15 years after reunification, in "Eastern Germany". The association was quite proud of having historical roots close to GDR opposition and GDR citizens' rights movement (Bürgerrechtsbewegung), and many of the students came from such a background as well.
Nevertheless, it happened that we didn't realize how important secret voting is* until quite late.

* Even in not-so-important contexts, I mean, this was just some student club: the cost of speaking up with an uncomfortable request was minor (compared e.g. to the risk the GDR election monitoring people took). But it was nevertheless sufficient to keep several people from exercising a right they had and which they actually wished to exercise.

  • The 1986 elections were clearly rigged. I don't know how big the repercussions were for using the election cabin, but I would guess that ballot secrecy was only a minor aspect of the overall vote rigging in 1986. – gerrit Dec 09 '22 at 17:10
  • @gerrit: I'm happy to believe that pretty much all elections in the GDR were rigged and influenced, and in many ways. And I fully agree that not having mandatory voting secrecy is only one (of many - I emphasized this more now) puzzle pieces to those election results being very far off the actual opinion of the voters. OTOH, these numbers here, as imperfect as they are to the actual order of magnitude that can be attributed to the effect of lack of secrecy, are the best towards showing a real-world effect. Seeing that noone else gave better actual observations, I decided to include this. – cbeleites unhappy with SX Dec 11 '22 at 16:52
  • When comparing the votes for the unity list in 1986 with the votes for the free elections in 1990, you should (for fairness) also add up the votes for the individual parties which were previously part of the unity list. Like the CDU (40% in 1990) and some other "block parties" (who got quite low percentages in 1990). But really, there is no comparison between a "1 choice" and "multiple choices" result. – Paŭlo Ebermann Dec 11 '22 at 21:19
  • @PaŭloEbermann: I think it captures the choices better to say that the unified list before was "the system as it is" and PDS being the choice in the 1990 elections that expressed "keep that old system". For the other parties, they hastily aligned very much with their western pendants. So while a nominal CDU was part of the unified list before, those 40 % were for a CDU proposing to join Western Germany. SPD was less keen to join (in particular, Oskar Lafointaine, the Western SPD leader, was rather opposed). Bündnis 90 war GDR opposition and wanted to change the GDR into a true democracy. – cbeleites unhappy with SX Dec 11 '22 at 21:53
  • People in GDR joined block parties to avoid being pestered to join SED (e.g. at work), but since the block parties had a fixed minority in the unified list (SED had the seats nominally counted as SED plus all their members in what were officially the organization seats), I don't think even block party members kidded themselves as to electing anything but "the system, yes or yes" before 1990. – cbeleites unhappy with SX Dec 11 '22 at 21:58
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You have a tradeoff:

A) I am sure my vote was really counted for the candidate I voted for and that all the votes were counted correctly.

and

B) I cannot be in trouble because I voted for the wrong candidate.

There is NO way to have both A and B. If you could verify/validate/... your vote, so can others - who may put you in trouble for your "incorrect" choice. Disadvantage of not having A means that people in the system could rig elections, and this is clearly bad and you want to prevent that. Fine. But the problem is that if you CAN be in trouble because you voted wrong, the upside that people in the system cannot rig votes becomes irrelevant. Why would you care your vote was counted correctly, if you can't even make the choice you would want to? Loss of a vote is a MUCH smaller price than the loss of a job, house, family, ...

So, we opted for the secrecy. It works better.

Zizy Archer
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  • "If you could verify/validate/... your vote, so can others" - That's solvable. Basic example: each ballot (handed out at the cabin) gets a randomized ID/passphrase. You vote as usual (in secret), then a list of votes by ballot ID is published. If you remember / store "your" ID, you can check whether your vote was counted correctly. No one can prove which ID you had. – Ruther Rendommeleigh Dec 11 '22 at 16:49
  • @RutherRendommeleigh: that's at least a leaky system, though, in at least 2 important ways: Someone may say, I only pay you on revealing your ID in an unambiguous way (before the official lists are out, so you cannot pick a "neighbour ID" with the "right" vote) and then showing the corresponding vote to me. Also, in a general situation as I outlined for elections in the GDR: if many proove by "volountarily" revealing their ID that they voted "correctly", they can put the few remaining are under strong suspicion or even make certain that they voted the wrong way. – cbeleites unhappy with SX Dec 11 '22 at 19:37
  • Even without being able to trace which "counting mark" exacly belongs to your vote, you can get quite strong conclusions about the aggregated result being correct: Where I am, I could go and vote, and instead of turning away stay there and watch that noone tampers with the ballot box. (I can also go and watch the morning check that it is actually empty). In the evening, I can follow that box into the counting room (counting is public and most of it is done immediately after the election stations close) and see that the counting procedure is performed correctly... – cbeleites unhappy with SX Dec 11 '22 at 19:48
  • ... I cannot know which of the sheets is my vote (any marking that would make a sheet recogizable/threatens voting secrecy is void by law), but I can know that all votes in "my" polling station are correctly treated. In conclusion, my vote was also treated correctly. (We still vote on paper) – cbeleites unhappy with SX Dec 11 '22 at 19:49
  • I'm not saying the example is perfect, a good system's gonna take more than 600 characters. But the kinks can be ironed out. In a digital ecosystem, it's a long solved problem and I'm confident that we could, with preparation, translate that to "pen and paper" voting. Whether that's worth the effort is another question, I'd agree that the current system works well enough. – Ruther Rendommeleigh Dec 11 '22 at 19:59
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This is specific to the United States but consider this interactive map courtesy of the New York Times.

The map is an election results map of the entire United States results for the 2016 presidential election by precinct (FYI a precinct in the United States is the smallest political sub division and typically will constitute a population of on average 1,100 voters. On high zooms, you will be able to highlight counties but on lower zooms it will show individual precincts and more importantly, it will show how close in drive time without traffic one has to go before they are in a precinct that was one by the candidate that lost their precinct.

It's important to note that while Hilary did win the popular vote, that is a relatively small geographical span of the country compared to Trump. What's more neither candidate is believed to have won all votes in a single precinct anywhere in the nation... and what's more many precincts where Hilary won are within 10 minutes drive from a precinct Trump won (I was able to find a Trump precinct that was a 96 minute drive to the closes Hilary precinct, but again, his support covers more geographical spread).

What this means is that while many people come out in support of a candidate, many do not because they are aware that their local popular politics are different from their own, and it is not in their best interest to voice their own opinion. They might not be able to leave for a favorable district, but even if they could, they're likely not that far from an unfavorable one.

In short, just because the polls in your area reflect a certain political preference, it doesn't mean there is someone who lives there who agrees... and they may understand they are in a minority of opinion and just decide to vote and not talk about it with the neighbors. Hell, I hear in some parts of the country, Republican supporters and Democrat supports actually like each other in spite of their political differences and don't want to ruin friendships by bringing up such silly things.

Rick Smith
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  • I don't understand what driving time has to do with it, but in Kalawao County, Hawaii, there was exactly one vote for the Republican Presidential Candidate in 2020 and 2016, and in 2020, all other votes were for the Democratic Presidential Candidate. – gerrit Dec 09 '22 at 17:16
  • Was I hear in some parts of the country, Republican supporters and Democrat supports actually like each other meant to be sarcastic? If not, it shows the deeply sad state of the country. – gerrit Dec 09 '22 at 17:17
  • @gerrit Yeah, that was sarcastic. Speaking on personal experience, my mother's side of the family, my Grandparents both ran in partisan elections (both were Judges in a state where Judges were elected officials) and are very loyal to their party. They were well aware that more than one of their children were loyal to the party they're parents did not support. That said, almost everyone are moderates on their favored party's policies and what little political discussions the family has with each other is usually one side discussing their dislike of their own party extremes. – hszmv Dec 09 '22 at 17:31
  • @gerrit Also among my mom's side of the family, my parents are the only couple that were where they were not registered members of the same political party (though one of my parents maintains they are registered with their party only because that party dominates state politics and they want to have a voice in their primary and don't always vote for their party in general elections). And my siblings are the only members of our generation that have politically different views. Even among the cousins, we all are moderates in our beliefs. – hszmv Dec 09 '22 at 17:39
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    I'm not sure I understand what this has to do with the question. If you're trying to get at the idea of peer pressure with neighbors with unpopular opinions, then that's really not clear - I'm just taking a stab at the closest relevant thing I can think of. – Bobson Dec 09 '22 at 17:53