[EL] Voting by mail cannot ensure a secret ballot, which is the cornerstone of democracy (The Boston Globe)

Tue May 12 14:07:31 PDT 2020

I don’t know, feels like a pretty tenuous link to the original comment. Thanks for the citation to the paper, which I hadn’t seen before, and fully recognizing that this made it through peer review, I don’t find the results particularly compelling or relevant to vote by mail.

The article investigates beliefs that (a) “politicians, union officials, or the people you work for” have some way of discovering your vote choice, and (b) that respondents either do or do not share their choices with “close friends or family members”.

A side note, the authors write  (pg. 79)

	“(w)e asked a series of questions which measure respondents’ perceptions about the extent to which voting administrators keep their vote choices confidential and whether respondents share their voting decisions with others, in particular close friends and family members”

but this is a misleading sentence. The questions are listed below — there is NOTHING in there about election administrators, except perhaps by implication in question 1. The questions all frame the answers in terms of “politicians, union officials, or someone you work for.”

The only statistically significant findings are for individuals who (a) think that is it possible to have voting secrecy violated, and (b) are union members, with one additional weak relationship for those identifying as weak Republicans (this is only in 2 of 6 models). All this is from Table 2 in the paper. Is it coincidental that the only robust and strong finding is for union members, which is also the only institution specifically mentioned in the questions?

There’s nothing about how the person cast their ballot, and I hope we can all agree that while these perceptions may be real, there is no evidence that politicians, election officials, or union officials are “matching you up” or “watching you” to violate the secret ballot.

The only mention of voting by mail is at the end, in the classic political science “let’s make broad generalizations beyond our data.” No criticism of the authors, but of my discipline which seems to require these kinds of broad statements to establish the “importance” of our work:

	"The recent shift to mail-in (postal) ballots, with the concomitant increase in voting parties and other social gatherings to fill out these ballots, raises similar concerns.”

Do we KNOW that there are lots of voting parties and social gatherings?  Do we KNOW that the people who express “social secrecy” concerns would be the kinds of people who attend these “parties.”

And there is nothing about potential positive outcomes of these gatherings: social capital building, sharing political information and discussion with friends, family, and community members; potentially more informed voting.  That’s a pretty big thing to not mention, given that folks somethings criticize early voting methods because they reduce a sense of community. Now we have a critique of early voting on the same grounds.

 "Psychological security”  items (with some response percentages in parentheses) :
================================================================

	1. As far as you know, when you go to a polling place and vote, are your choices about which candidate you voted for kept secret unless you tell someone, or are your choices not kept secret? (not kept secret: 25.5%)

	2. According to the law, which candidate you vote for is supposed to be kept secret unless you tell someone. Even so, how difficult do you think it would be for politicians, union officials, or the people you work for to find out who you voted for, even if you told no one? (not difficult at all + not difficult = 40.4%)

	3. Do you think a politician, union official, or someone you work for has ever found out who you voted for because you were being watched when you voted, because there is some way to match you up with your ballot, or because of some other way around the secret ballot? (yes = 11%)

	4. How often do you think someone like a politician, union official, or someone you work for finds out who you voted for because you were being watched when you voted, because there is some way to match you up with your ballot, or because of some other way around the secret ballot? (only if ‘Yes’ above) (Always + most = 44.0%)

---
Paul Gronke
Professor, Reed College
Director, Early Voting Information Center
http://earlyvoting.net

General Inquiries: Laura Swann swannla at reed.edu

Media Inquiries: Kevin Myers myersk at reed.edu

> On May 12, 2020, at 11:14 AM, Lonna Atkeson <atkeson at unm.edu> wrote:
> 
> This is a real issue.
> 
> I have watched a lot of voting and watched people get “assistance” in an election setting and it is not neutral.  There have been quite a number of times where I’ve been glad there's a secret ballot.
> 
> Gerber et al’s work shows that people who think their ballot isn’t private vote differently than similarly situated people who believe their ballot is private.  This is not a trivial issue to be rejected out of hand.
> 
> Here’s their abstract:
> 
> Do people believe the votes they cast are truly secret? Novel items added to a nationally representative survey show that 25 per cent of respondents report not believing their ballot choices are kept secret and over 70 per cent report sharing their vote choices with others. These findings suggest that standard models of candidate choice should account for the potential effects of doubts about ballot secrecy. Consistent with this view, regression analysis shows that social forces appear to have a greater effect on vote choices among people who doubt the formal secrecy of the ballot. This analysis supports the broader claim that the intended benefits of institutional rules may not be realized if people's perceptions of these rules differ from their formal characteristics.
> 
> Here’s information to their article:
> 
> https://doi.org/10.1017/S000712341200021X <https://doi.org/10.1017/S000712341200021X>
> 
> Lonna
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On May 12, 2020, at 11:54 AM, larrylevine at earthlink.net <mailto:larrylevine at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> 
>>   [EXTERNAL]
>> Whether voting by mail or marking a sample ballot to take to the polls, people have gathered around the table to discuss the candidates and issues for generations. Many of us have involved our kids in the discussion. Some have taken the kids to the polling place to watch them mark the actual ballot. This is a non-issue.
>> Larry
>> 
>> From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>> On Behalf Of Michael McDonald
>> Sent: Tuesday, 12 May 2020 10:32 AM
>> To: Jurij Toplak <jurij.toplak at um.si <mailto:jurij.toplak at um.si>>
>> Cc: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu <mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
>> Subject: Re: [EL] Voting by mail cannot ensure a secret ballot, which is the cornerstone of democracy (The Boston Globe)
>> 
>> FWIW, the California Supreme Court rejected a claim mail balloting should be deemed unconstitutional due to the loss of a secret ballot in Peterson v. City of San Diego (1983), finding a balance weighing in favor of increased access to lowered election administration costs.
>> 
>> https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/34/225.html <https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/34/225.html>
>> 
>> ============
>> Dr. Michael P. McDonald
>> Associate Professor, University of Florida
>> 703-772-1440 (c)
>> 352-273-2371 (w)
>> www.electproject.org <http://www.electproject.org/>
>> @ElectProject
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 7:40 AM Jurij Toplak <jurij.toplak at um.si <mailto:jurij.toplak at um.si>> wrote:
>>> The Boston Globe published my view of voting by mail. A problem of families or employees voting together has been debated in the rest of the world for a century. In Austria-Hungary, in the early 20th century, voting in groups was a known problem.
>>> 
>>> Much mail voting takes place at the kitchen table, with family members filling out their ballots together. The elderly and disabled cast their votes alongside their caretakers. The more timid or needy or financially dependent family members, and those in nursing homes, will often follow the advice or expectations of those on whom they depend in order to gain sympathy or favor or to avoid conflict, intimidation, ridicule, or dislike. The US has fought for decades around the world to make sure that women, youth, elderly, and the disabled may all vote in privacy, without a husband or family head looking over their shoulder, because such a circumstance cancels the free and honest expression of a voter’s convictions.
>>> 
>>> https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/05/12/opinion/push-mail-in-vote-gaining-steam-scrutiny/ <https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/05/12/opinion/push-mail-in-vote-gaining-steam-scrutiny/>
>>> 
>>> Jurij
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