• finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    The majority of votes in the USA are electronically counted, and a ballot itself is a record of a vote as well. What there isn’t is a searchable index of who voted for what, and I apologize for my unclear language.

    But the likelihood of oppression based on availability of those vote records is still very much there even if the voter themself doesn’t have access.

    • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      Back to school. Vote-buying breaks democracy. Not having proof of who you voted for makes vote-buying pointless. Yes, your vote could be miscounted. This is generally less of a problem than the general population being able to sell their votes and can be mitigated in a variety of ways which don’t tie votes to voters.

        • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          What’s to stop me from filling it out the way I said I would, going to the voting office and saying the ballot I had previously was lost/damaged/spoiled and then voting differently than how I was paid to vote?

          The premise behind a secret ballot is it can’t be proven how you vote. You can still sell your vote (illegally), you just can’t prove you voted the way you said you would. As shown above, absentee ballots don’t remove that distinction. I suppose the criminals could just trust each other…

          • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            If you submit multiple ballots its voter fraud. If your buyer drops off your ballot on election day then there is nothing you can do to stop it that you couldn’t do in the other circumstance.

            • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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              1 month ago

              This topic has been discussed for a couple thousand years now, and you clearly have access to the internet. Feel free to search for the answers on your own.