Against the secret ballot: Toward a new proposal for open voting

Engelen, Bart; Nys, Thomas

doi:10.1057/ap.2013.10

Cited by 17 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Beside the issue of domination, another instrumental argument in favor of secrecy can be grounded in the value of participation. As Lever and others suggest (Engelen & Nys, , p. 502; Lever, ), the obligation of justification is likely to have an undesirable effect on participation. And it is true that, to a certain extent, there is a historical correlation between the extension of suffrage and the reintroduction of the secret ballot, and evidence that secret voting initially fostered electoral participation (Buchstein, ; Przeworski, ).…”

Section: Assessing the Secret Ballotmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But what would matter for increasing impartiality of judgment is an incentive to enter discussions with people belonging to other social classes, geographical contexts and groups of interests. As Engelen and Nys () argue, “If open voting is to generate more attention to society's public interest, the public gaze should not come from one's friends and associates but from a random selection of fellow citizens” (p. 504). This claim finds support in Cass Sunstein's () observations about group polarization when groups are too homogeneous.…”

Section: Openness Without Corruption or Intimidationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They imagine a Justification Day after the votes, that is, “small assemblies of randomly selected citizens, in which their votes will be truthfully revealed to each other and in which they will be asked to discuss the reasons for and against their votes” (Engelen & Nys, , p. 504). This way, voters would “cast their vote in complete secrecy (as they do now) but in full knowledge that they may have to defend and argue for it in the future” (Engelen & Nys, , p. 504) if they are randomly selected to do so. It is the anticipation of the possibility to have to justify oneself that would incentivize discursively defensible votes.…”

Section: Openness Without Corruption or Intimidationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Voting secrecy and the right to justification

Vandamme¹

2017

Constellations

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Suppose we value public deliberations both for their individual and collective effects. 1 From this point of view, we have reasons to be unsatisfied with the practice of secret voting. While we want voters to discuss collectively, exchange views and perspectives, justify their positions, and consider all interests impartially, we let them perform the crucial action of votingalone, in the secrecy of the voting booth (Beerbohm, 2012;Brennan, 2011). What a poor incentive to behave as a responsible citizen committed to justice! On the one hand, we want people to be influenced by the opinions of their peers. On the other hand, we use a voting system aiming at isolating people from any influence.

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Section: Assessing the Secret Ballotmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Openness Without Corruption or Intimidationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Openness Without Corruption or Intimidationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Voting secrecy and the right to justification

Vandamme¹

2017

Constellations

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“…First, it contributes to the literature that discusses potential benefits and downsides of secret and non‐secret voting in modern societies (e.g. Brennan and Pettit 1990; Engelen and Nys 2013; Manin 2015; Offe 1989; Vandamme 2018), adding an empirical perspective to a hitherto largely theoretical scholarship.…”

Section: Conceptualising Collective Votingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This means that voters only adopt positions that can either be argued to lie in the common interest, or that are at least reducible to some commonly agreed principle(s): “People are more likely to vote their judgements if they can be put in a position where they may expect to be discursively challenged about their voting stance” (Brennan and Pettit 1990: 328). Open voting – that element of collective voting which stipulates that others can see how I vote – thus becomes the extension of deliberation, applying the argumentative logic to voting itself and rendering it both decisive and reasonable at the same time (Engelen and Nys 2013: 497). Seglow (2020) even goes as far as to state that other citizens, in that they are affected by my vote, have a right to know my choice.…”

Section: Conceptualising Collective Votingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democracy Beyond Secrecy: Assessing the Promises and Pitfalls of Collective Voting

Mueller

Gerber

Schaub

2021

Swiss Political Sci Review

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This paper assesses collective voting as a specific mode of democratic decision-making and compares it to secret voting. Under collective voting, voters gather in one place and decide by the show of hands. We theorise two potential advantages and two disadvantages of collective voting so defined. We then draw on original survey data from one of the largest polities practising collective voting, the citizen assembly of the Swiss canton of Glarus. We find that both the promises and pitfalls of non-secret voting are exaggerated. Non-secret voting's suspected pitfallssocial pressure and abstentiondo not generally materialise in our sample, although for women they do appear to be relevant to some extent. However, the promises of collective votingenabling cue-taking and discursive bridging and bondingare equally realised to a limited extent only. Zusammenfassung: Dieser Beitrag untersucht die kollektive Stimmabgabe bei demokratischen Entscheidfindungen im Vergleich zur geheimen Stimmabgabe. Bei kollektiven Abstimmungen versammeln sich die Stimmenden an einem Ort und geben ihre Stimme offen und gleichzeitig ab: Das heisst, dass jede Person sehen kann, wie die anderen abstimmen, und ihrerseits von allen anderen bei der Stimmabgabe gesehen werden kann. Der Beitrag diskutiert zwei theoretische Gefahrensozialen Druck und Stimmenthaltungund zwei theoretische Chancendie M€ oglichkeit zum Cue-Taking und die St€ arkung des Sozialkapitals durch Bridging and Bondingeiner solchen kollektiven Stimmabgabe. Anhand von Umfragedaten aus dem Landsgemeindekanton Glarus nehmen wir eine empirische € Uberpr€ ufung der theoretischen Erwartungen vor. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass sowohl die Vor-als auch die Nachteile des nichtgeheimen Abstimmens € ubersch€ atzt werden. Die vermuteten Gefahren von nichtgeheimer Stimmabgabe spielen in unserem Sample zwar eine gewisse Rolle bei weiblichen Stimmberechtigten, lassen sich aber nicht generell feststellen. Umgekehrt werden allerdings auch die erhofften Vorteile kollektiver Stimmabgabe nur in beschr€ anktem Mass realisiert. R esum e: Cet article analyse le vote collectif comme modalit e de prise de d ecision d emocratique et le compare au vote secret. Le vote collectif se caract erise par le fait que les electeurs se r eunissent au même endroit et votent a la fois publiquement et simultan ement. Cela veut dire que, non seulement, chaque electeur peut observer comment votent les autres, mais aussi que ces derniers peuvent observer comment l' electeur exprime ses choix politiques. L'article discute d'abord deux risquesla pression sociale et l'abstentionet deux avantages potentielsla possibilit e de s'informer aupr es des autres au moment du vote (cue-taking) et le renforcement des liens sociaux (bridging and bonding)du vote collectif. Nous menons ensuite une analyse statistique a partir des r eponses tir ees d'un sondage men e dans le canton de Glaris, qui pratique la Landsgemeinde. Nos r esultats montrent que les craintes comme les espoirs visa -vis du vote collectif sont exag er es. Notre ech...

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Artificial intelligence and the secret ballot

2022

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In this paper, we argue that because of the advent of Artificial Intelligence, the secret ballot is now much less effective at protecting voters from voting related instances of social ostracism and social punishment. If one has access to vast amounts of data about specific electors, then it is possible, at least with respect to a significant subset of electors, to infer with high levels of accuracy how they voted in a past election. Since the accuracy levels of Artificial Intelligence are so high, the practical consequences of someone inferring one's vote are identical to the practical consequences of having one's vote revealed directly under an open voting regime. Therefore, if one thinks that the secret ballot is at least partly justified because it protects electors against voting related social ostracism and social punishment, one should be morally troubled by how Artificial Intelligence today can be used to infer individual electors' past voting behaviour.

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Against the secret ballot: Toward a new proposal for open voting

Cited by 17 publications

References 20 publications

Voting secrecy and the right to justification

Voting secrecy and the right to justification

Democracy Beyond Secrecy: Assessing the Promises and Pitfalls of Collective Voting

Artificial intelligence and the secret ballot

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