Secret Ballot? What Secret Ballot?

One of the first posts I ever made on this blog was on the problem of ensuring secrecy in voting with the optical scan ballot they have been using recently in suburban Cook County, Illinois. (See here.)

Well, they had a couple of video screen voting machines at the polling place today, and it was amazing. There was absolutely no secrecy at all when you used one of them to vote. The voting booth, if that is what you want to call it, had three really low sides. The video screen was situated so it was above any of the sides. And there was nothing behind the voter. It would have been no problem at all to see how any person using one of these machines was voting. You had no more secrecy than if you had shouted out your choices in a public meeting.

Oh well, at least it is Cook County. It’s not like we have ever had any problems with fraud in voting in Cook County. We’re all honest people, and we only elect honest politicians.