Should the secret ballot be abolished?

[SidneyCarton]

I ask this in due to the recent court order regarding the Prop 8 donors, (I agree with the ruling, they should not remain secret.) If the way people vote with their dollars is open to scrutiny, why shouldn't the way we vote in general be open to the same scrutiny, for everyone to consider?

In the interests of full disclosure, I do not favor this, but I am interested in your thoughts...

[Ian David]

1. Ballot initiatives take the place of old fashioned town hall meetings...

... which would be unwieldy on a state or urban level.

[SidneyCarton]

8. And such meetings were public

Ergo there should be no privacy regarding ballot initiatives. That actually makes some sense. Yes, a meeting of the 10 Million+ electors of the State of California under one roof would be unwieldy, to say the least.

[ColbertWatcher]

2. People do not vote with their dollars.

That's apples and oranges.

[SidneyCarton]

4. Ok, agreed.

So should our votes be public or not?

[ColbertWatcher]

17. No need to change anything just because the GOP complains.

It's time the GOP start accepting our democratic-republic, instead of trying to turn our country into a theocracy.

[LiberalFighter]

21. Our votes are public to the extent that there is a public voting history for each voter.

[SidneyCarton]

25. Clarify this for me...(I didn 't know this)

Where is there a public voting history recorded for me?

[John Q. Citizen]

31. Some states list voters by party affiliation. Some don't. But everytime you show up and vote

it is noted that you showed up and voted.

[SidneyCarton]

33. But not necessarily how.

My Father is a registered Republican, who has never voted Republican, so appearances can be deceiving

[Jamastiene]

32. I'm not sure how your state does it, but this is how its done in NC

http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/VoterLookup.aspx

Well, that is at least one way. It only goes back to '92 though. Apparently, I even vote on local referendums in between state and national elections. I'm a vot-a-holic, :P

[SidneyCarton]

34. Interesting.

I'm not sure what we do in CA.

[lurky]

3. Never.

It exposes people to extortion by employers, political violence, buying and selling of votes, etc. We used to have public ballots, and corruption was rampant.

[Dreamer Tatum]

6. Sounds like a way to persecute people

for having the nerve to disagree.

[lurky]

12. Exactly. People would get beaten or even killed for how they voted.

[SidneyCarton]

24. And if this happens because of the way they donated?

It hasn't happened yet, and I'm not saying it will, but the possibility raises questions as to the implications of public advocacy.

[Dreamer Tatum]

35. It sort f HAS happened

The woman who owned that Mexican restaurant was raked over the coals for her Prop 8 donation. The general consensus was that she had it coming, although I think the mood would be different if the politics were reversed.

I think if you underwrite a political cause, people should know, but there should be specific laws about harassment and intimidation after the fact that is known to result from the donation.

[SidneyCarton]

36. Agreed, you make an excellent point.

We have had considerable schadenfreude over the discomfiture of this woman, for her lack of judgment. We would likely not find it so amusing had the political situation been otherwise.

Anti-harassment laws are an excellent idea.

[Dreamer Tatum]

39. Like whistleblower laws in reverse nt

[4 t 4]

11. I think we should

all start asking ourselves "What is best for the people" and going with that from now on. We deserve our country back in every way, shape and form.

[SidneyCarton]

13. And publishing donations does not?

All of this sounds like an excellent argument for the mandatory public financing of all campaigns.

[lurky]

20. Reason #572 for public financing.

I'll add it to my list... :)

[Mass]

5. 1 man(woman), one vote. Universal suffrage implies equality.

on the contrary, you are not equal when it comes to supporting candidates/propositions with money. This is why it is important to know who is providing the funds for a candidate/proposition. It will tell us whether it is supported by a wide variety of people or just by a few fat cats/ special interests.

Suffrage should be secret. It is one of the most fundamental rights of a democracy to be able to vote for a candidate without intimidation. The only way to do so is to have secret ballot.

[SidneyCarton]

16. This also makes sense

Donations imply one dollar, one vote which creates a brutal inequality for a majority of Americans.

[smoogatz]

7. People don't "vote" with their dollars.

They vote at the voting booth. What political ad donors do with their dollars is try to persuade others to vote the way they want them to, and that should be open to public scrutiny. That seems obvious to me. How you vote is your business. Who gives what to whom to influence your vote is also your business.

[SidneyCarton]

9. see post 4

[ItNerd4life]

10. Yes, that way I can be killed if I don't vote the way gov't wants me too.

Imagine Bush in office and you don't vote for him? What happens to you? Your family?

Secret ballots are absolutely required.

[damntexdem]

22. It's exactly what happened in Zimbabwe.

Mugabe's thugs made it clear to voters that their ballots would not remain secret, and that they would be (often were being) punished for voting for the opposition.

[leftstreet]

14. Well, if they're going to COUNT our votes in secret...

[SidneyCarton]

18. Good point.

The counting of votes must be standardized and open. As long as we can never be sure if our votes are being counted, we should have the right on anonymity.

[damntexdem]

15. Donations can have major implications beyond the person donating.

By contrast, how an individual votes counts no more than how another does.

Requiring identification of donors aims at issues of undue influence on elections. Not so voting by individuals. The actions are not equivalent.

[napi21]

19. NO! Every employer I've ever had was a PUB! I've even worked

at places where there was a fellow employee who was running for something. In one instance, the candidate was the brother of the President of the company. I didn't vote for him because he was an idiot, plus I disagreed with him on every issue, but nobody at wowrk knew that I didn't vote for him.

Then you have things like the house that was burned down in Cummings Ga. Interestingly, it was the ONLY house that had an Obama sign in their yard during the campaign, and the fire investigators have already ruled it arson, and suspect it was political retaliation!

[tammywammy]

23. No. n/t

[Occam Bandage]

26. No, I don't. Voting is proper influence on politics. Money is distorting influence.

It is, however, protected influence. To protect people's free speech rights, and to protect the transparency and correct for the distortionary effect of money, people should be allowed to donate money to causes, and donor lists should be open to the public.

[Still Sensible]

27. Absolutely not

[HawkerHurricane]

28. No

The reason for secret ballots was to prevent bribery and/or blackmail.

Money is not speech. Nor is it a vote.

[Warpy]

29. NO!!!!!!

Can you imagine the pressure voters would be under if their BOSSES got to look at the way they voted?

Screw that. We have a secret ballot for a very, very good reason. If you think it through, you'll know what that is.

[SidneyCarton]

30. And no pressure will be put upon donors?

Certainly there is no reason for DU'ers to feel sympathy for Prop. 8 donors, but those who donated against Prop. 2 (requiring parental-notification for Abortions, a proposition which was defeated) are equally public. Should pro-life bosses decide to take measures against employees who donated to that campaign, would you feel differently?

[Greyhound]

37. Money as speech is an aberration and, assuming the United States survives, will

be overturned/countered in the future.

Using it as an argument against the secret ballot is not a good idea.

[SidneyCarton]

38. You are assuming that we will someday achieve public funding...

In the mean time, I don't think our votes should be public either.

[Greyhound]

40. Once in a great while I am overcome with unjustified optimism regarding America.

Given enough time we have, rarely, done the right thing.

Of course, Sol will burn out in another few billion years, so...

[SidneyCarton]

41. Fair enough

;)

[JVS]

42. No. Your connection lies with the metaphor of voting with dollars, which breaks down here.

[SidneyCarton]

43. I see your point, see post 4

That said, the question is less one of voting with dollars (a very poor choice of words on my part) than the idea of publicity, and the consequences thereof. We celebrate the discomfiture of Prop 8 supporters because we see them as bigots, yet we would loudly decry any harassment that came from progressive donors to progressive campaigns.