• stinky@redlemmy.com
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    13 days ago

    Can’t we be coerced to get in our car, drive to a polling place, and vote for a particular candidate? Blackmail, other threats, or financial incentives etc, I’m not sure why a physical polling place is safer than being able to vote anonymously

    • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      No matter who threatens you, they can’t see what’s on the paper ballot you put in a box. There’s people at the polling station that ensure that.

      If there’s any way of tracking your vote, someone could threaten you, force you to vote a certain way, then force you to show the verification afterwards.

      The safest way to ensure everyone gets a fair vote is paper ballots in a box.

      I know the US uses a lot of mail-in voting, and that you generally deem it to be secure. I also understand that the US is a far less densely populated country than my own, which makes mail-in voting more necessary. However, we don’t have that in my country, and the reason I’m glad for it is exactly this: There’s no truly effective way to prevent anyone from forcing someone else to mail in a specific vote.