Victoria’s Secret Ballot: The Sexy Science Behind Voting
Imagine you’re in a group that’s trying to decide which movie to go for? And there’s a movie that you like but you know everybody will judge you for it, instead of a pat on the back you’ll get a stink-eye. Would you still vote for it openly?
And those were the stakes just for a movie. Now imagine that voting scene again, but everything on a larger canvas, more people to judge you, more viciousness, and more goons than your average family or a friend group. Imagine our elections.
Alright, the secret ballot is the answer. That’s a no-brainer. But here’s an amazing thing, there are two levels on which this secrecy ought to be executed.
That revelation blew my mind a little bit. The first level of secrecy is called ‘Weak Secrecy’, in it nobody can find out how you voted. The second one is ‘Strong Secrecy’, in it you can’t prove how you voted even if you wanted to.
The first level is to prevent you from voting under threat; the second level is to prevent you from selling the vote. If you can’t prove how you voted, the person buying your vote will always be uncertain about it and lessen the practice. Thereby ensuring voting is done only with sincere intentions(whatever they may be).
Going into the history of anything should be avoided during explanation unless there’s a thriller element to it. Now the time has come to go into the history of voting and check if they were good enough secrecy wise.
- This is a painting of an open ballot system. The place is not important but do take a moment to think before proceeding next to know how it did on secrecy levels?
Ans. Not Good. Not only could you get intimidated by goons you could also sell your vote out loud.
2. Before voting booths didn’t give you any ballot papers, you could write on papers and put it into the ballot box. Newspapers started printing filled out papers, which were distinctly colored. You could tear it off and go into the polling booth. Before proceeding next, how did it do on the levels of secrecy?
Ans. Terribly. The colors of newspapers gave away who you are voting for. Selling your vote was never this convenient, you got everything done for you.
So far you have seen only the first level of secrecy is violated. What happens when the first level is maintained and second level is breached? history
3. After noticing the pitfalls of newspaper printed ballots, administrations started printing their own ballot papers. And had individual cubicles for people to vote in without being seen by anyone. What could’ve gone wrong in the secrecy?
A scam called ‘Chain Voting’. What happened in this was a few initial voters would sneak out, the unmarked ballot papers and, for some money, give it to the vote buyers. The vote buyers would mark their candidate and give it to next vote sellers. The vote-sellers would receive money if they returned with another empty ballot paper, meaning they had used up the pre-marked ballot paper and the empty ballot paper they received can be given to the next user and the chain continued, hence the name.
If you guessed the above three right, well done. If you haven’t got them right, it’s still alright, you’ve put in an effort, you are a democratic citizen. You are needed. You can put in some more thought about how is your ballot’s secrecy protected in the current voting systems.
Up Next:
If you have reached till here, you’ve got yourself sneak peek at the next part in the series — A sophisticated voting machine that could be hacked with just a pencil lead.
(To be continued…)
[Credit: This article is based on the course ‘Securing Digital Democracy’ by Alex Halderman.]