Secret ballot


The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote buying. This system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy.
Secret ballots are used in conjunction with various voting systems. The most basic form of a secret ballot uses paper ballots upon which each voter marks their choices. Without revealing the votes, the voter folds the ballot paper in half and places it in a sealed box. This box is later emptied for counting. An aspect of secret voting is the provision of a voting booth to enable the voter to write on the ballot paper without others being able to see what is being written. Today, printed ballot papers are usually provided, with the names of the candidates or questions and respective check boxes. Provisions are made at the polling place for the voters to record their preferences in secret, and the ballots are designed to eliminate bias and prevent anyone from linking voters to the ballot.
A privacy problem arises with moves to improve the efficiency of voting by the introduction of postal voting and remote electronic voting. Some countries permit proxy voting, but some argue this is inconsistent with voting privacy. The popularity of the ballot selfie has challenged the secrecy of in-person voting.
In systems of direct democracy, such as the Swiss Landsgemeinde, voting is typically conducted publicly to ensure all citizens can observe the outcome.

Secret vs. public methods

By the late 20th century, the secret ballot had become commonplace for "individual citizens" in democracies. Votes taken by elected officials are typically public, so citizens can judge officials' and former officials' voting records in future elections. This may be done with a physical or electronic system or through a roll call vote. Some faster legislative voting methods do not record who voted in which way, though witnesses in the legislative chambers may still notice a given legislator's vote. These include voice votes where the volume of shouting for or against is taken as a measure of numerical support and counting of raised hands. In some cases, a secret ballot is used to allow representatives to choose party leadership without fear of retaliation against those voting for losing candidates. The parliamentary tactics of forcing or avoiding a roll call vote can be used to discourage or encourage representatives to vote in a manner that is politically unpopular among constituents or to create or prevent fodder for political campaigns.
Public methods of citizen voting have included:
  • Oral proclamation, where votes are shouted out one at a time, usually at an assembly
  • Going to a particular area at an assembly, such as a town meeting or the Iowa caucus. This is the origin of the term poll for an election, originally meaning "top of the head", which is what was being counted at these assemblies.
  • Small balls or other objects, such as corn, pebbles, beans, bullets, colored marbles, or cards. This is the origin of the term ballot, originally meaning "small ball".
  • Raising of hands at an assembly
  • Cutting a brightly colored ballot out of a newspaper and bringing it to a polling place
  • An open ballot system
Private methods of citizen voting have included:
  • Writing the name of the preferred candidate or outcome on a piece of paper and putting it in a container
  • Marking a government-printed ballot

    History

Ancient

In ancient Greece, secret ballots were used in several situations like ostracism and also to remain hidden from people seeking favors. In early 5th century BC the secrecy of ballot at ecclesia was not the primary concern, but more of a consequence of using ballots to count the votes accurately. Secret ballot was introduced into public life of Athens during second half of the fifth century.
In ancient Rome, the Tabellariae Leges were four laws that implemented secret ballots for votes cast regarding each of the major elected assemblies of the Roman Republic. Three of the four laws were put in place in relatively quick succession, with one each in the years 139 BC, 137 BC, and 131 BC, applying respectively to the elections of magistrates, jury deliberations excepting charges of treason as well as the passage of laws. The final of the four laws was implemented more than two decades later in 107 BC and served solely to expand the law passed in 137 BC to require secret ballots for all jury deliberations, including treason.
Before these ballot laws, one was required to verbally provide their vote to an individual responsible for tallying the votes, effectively publicly making every voter's vote known. Mandating secret ballots had the effect of reducing the influence of the Roman aristocracy, who were capable of influencing elections through a combination of bribes and threats. Secret balloting helps assuage both of those concerns, as not only are one's peers unable to determine which way you voted, there is additionally no proof that could be produced that you did vote certain way, perhaps contravening directions.

France

Article 31 of the Constitution of the Year III of the Revolution states that "All elections are to be held by secret ballot". The same goes with the constitution of 1848: voters could hand-write the name of their preferred candidate on their ballot at home or receive one distributed on the street. The ballot was folded in order to prevent other people from reading its contents.
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte attempted to abolish the secret ballot for the 1851 plebiscite with an electoral decree requesting electors to write down "yes" or "no" under the eyes of everyone. But he faced strong opposition and eventually relented, allowing the secret ballot to occur.
According to the official website of the Assemblée nationale, the voting booth was permanently adopted only in 1913.

United Kingdom

The demand for a secret ballot was one of the six points of Chartism. The British parliament of the time refused even to consider the Chartist demands. Still, Lord Macaulay, in an 1842 speech, while rejecting Chartism's six points as a whole, admitted that the secret ballot was one of the two points he could support.
The London School Board election of 1870 was Britain's first large-scale election by secret ballot.
After several failed attempts, the secret ballot was eventually extended generally in the Ballot Act 1872, substantially reducing the cost of campaigning and was first used on 15 August 1872 to re-elect Hugh Childers as MP for Pontefract in a ministerial by-election following his appointment as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The original ballot box, sealed in wax with a licorice stamp, is held at Pontefract museum.
However, the UK [|uses numbered ballots] to allow courts to intervene, under rare circumstances, to identify which candidate voters voted for.

Australia and New Zealand

In Australia, secret balloting appears to have been first implemented in Tasmania on 7 February 1856.
Until the original Tasmanian Electoral Act 1856 was "re-discovered" recently, credit for the first implementation of the secret ballot often went to Victoria, where the former mayor of Melbourne William Nicholson pioneered it, and simultaneously South Australia. Victoria enacted legislation for secret ballots on 19 March 1856, and South Australian Electoral Commissioner William Boothby generally gets credit for creating the system finally enacted into law in South Australia on 2 April of that same year. The other colonies in Australia followed: New South Wales, Queensland, and Western Australia.
State electoral laws, including the secret ballot, applied for the first election of the Australian parliament in 1901, and the system has continued to be a feature of federal elections and referendums.
The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 does not explicitly set out the secret ballot, but a reading of sections 206, 207, 325, and 327 of the Act would imply its assumption. Sections 323 and 226, however, apply the principle of a secret ballot to polling staff and would also support the assumption.
New Zealand implemented secret voting in 1870.

Singapore

A secret ballot is used in Singaporean elections to ensure the election's integrity and that the voter's decision is respected and kept secret. Ballot boxes undergo tamperproofing checks to ensure that the boxes are not tampered before it can be used. These boxes are sealed prior to the voting window, which opens at 8a.m. SGT for 12hours. All ballot papers had a serial number with a counterfoil attached to it, as these is to protect the integrity of the electoral process, the accounting for all the ballot papers issued and cast, and counter any electoral fraud; the counterfoil is also used for facilitating vote tracing if a court order is needed. Per safety and privacy reasons, voters are forbidden from using any electronic devices such as mobile phones or photography devices inside a polling station, and they are not allowed to bring the ballot paper out of the polling station. Voters are also advised not to make any markings by which the voter may be identified, as the vote may be rejected by officials. Exit polls are also illegal under the election act to maintain secrecy of voting; however, sample counts, a variant of the procedure, have been used since the 2015 general election to reduce speculation from unofficial sources.
After the voting window ends, the opening slots for these boxes are also sealed, after which these boxes are being transported to the polling station's designated counting centre under police escort. These boxes then undergo accounting process to ensure these seals are intact and all the boxes are present before it can be opened to commence vote counting. After the election ended, every ballots and other official documents used for the election are placed in a new, separate box, before being transferred to a secure vault inside Supreme Court where it will be locked for up to six months under safe custody; Only a judge of the Supreme Court may have the discretion to open the sealed boxes for inspection, though it is to institute or maintain a prosecution or an application to invalidate an election. After six months, these boxes are transported to Tuas South Incineration Plant where these boxes are destroyed thereafter.