Bentham & Ballots: Tradeoffs between Secrecy and Accountability in How We Vote

Abstract

The way a group, jurisdiction, or nation votes, and makes decisions binding on their members and citizens, is fundamental and deceptively prosaic. Why do some groups (faculties, Congress, caucuses, HOAs) take public votes in most contexts, accompanied by debate, sometimes heated? Why do others (electorates, labor unions) take private votes (often by ballot cast in a secure setting where "heated debate" is not allowed) in most contexts? Moreover, what should we make of the exceptions to these general forms? This Article will demonstrate that the hybrid mode of voting-non-debated yet non-secret voting such as in contemporary absentee balloting, in union organizing petitions (so called "card check" campaigns) as well as among corporate shareholderscarries with it the weaknesses of each system without the strengths. Accordingly, where possible the situations that use this hybrid should be reformed to adopt the open or secret modes.