Should Secret Voting Be Mandatory?. James Johnson
voted. As such, the protection that the secret ballot affords restricts individual freedom in one way in order to protect individuals from those who might seek to engage in electoral domination. We also underscore that voting secrecy effectively protects voters only when it is obligatory. That, in turn, requires that voting be controlled and administered by public officials.
In chapter 2, we relate the historical struggle to implement and refine ballot secrecy. Our account highlights the variety, efficacy, and limits of the institution. The design features and rules embodied in the most effective form of the secret ballot – in what is known as the “Australian ballot” – resulted from that historical struggle. They are intended to remedy lapses in secrecy when voting is left in the hands of private actors (e.g., party functionaries or their agents) rather than being controlled by public officials. We also establish how, historically, those bent on exercising electoral domination resort to attempting to buy or suppress turnout once the secret ballot has created an impediment to directly interfering with voting. Our first two chapters show why the secret ballot is necessary to protect voters from illicit interference as they seek to formulate and express their political preferences. They also show why the protections it affords are far from sufficient.
Our final chapter builds on this theoretical and historical groundwork. We argue that popular reforms aimed at enhancing inclusion by making it more convenient to vote threaten even such protection as the secret ballot provides. Politically, this creates the erroneous impression that an unavoidable tension exists between inclusion and electoral integrity. And it is the reason why we recommend making voting mandatory. This is a more effective way to promote inclusion than the family of reforms we criticize. But, more importantly, it complements and sustains the protections that the secret ballot offers to voters. Like the secret ballot, it infringes on the liberty of voters in one way in order to protect them from electoral domination. In this instance, it inoculates voters from attempts to buy or suppress turnout. We show that any apparent tension between promoting inclusive participation and protecting voter choice is entirely avoidable.
In short, when implemented in tandem, a pair of institutions – the secret ballot and compulsory voting – which may initially seem to reduce individual freedom in fact effectively protect individual voters from domination. That, we believe, is an important step in restoring popular confidence in elections and in democratic politics.
Notes
1 Freedom House (2019). “Democracy in Retreat: Freedom in the World 2019.” Freedom House. (https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2019/democracy-retreat) 2 R. S. Foa, A. Klassen, M. Slade, A. Rand, and R. Collins (2020). “The Global Satisfaction with Democracy Report 2020.” Cambridge, United Kingdom: Centre for the Future of Democracy.
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