Private and confidential voting is a key component of modern democratic systems in the United States and around the world today. But the “secret ballot” hasn’t always been guaranteed, and it requires a sustained commitment over time to guarantee free and confidential ballots to potential voters.

Watch the above video as Straight Arrow News contributor John Fortier reviews the history of the secret ballot in the United States, from the 19^th century to the present day, and outlines why he says it’s vital to protect the secret ballot for future generations.

The following is an excerpt from the above video:

Many years later, in the late 1970s, a number of states in the West started to view these [secret ballot] regulations as burdensome to voters. They allowed all voters to cast ballots without a reason. They stripped away the witness and notary public requirements, and they moved to mailing ballots to everyone and to a system where nearly all people vote by mail. There was a great variation in the way states vote, but quite a few have moved in this direction. They have forgotten about the privacy protections of early eras, seeing a system of convenience as important to voters.

Fortunately, we are not in an era like that of the corrupt city bosses of the 19th century, so fraud and coercion are not widespread. But it would still be good to recognize that there may be small pockets of people who might have someone else look at their ballots or subtly or unsubtly pressure their vote.

Other tensions include states that prohibit ballot selfies or taking a picture of your filled-out ballot, or the controversies of our ballot harvesting. Some think it’s a convenience for voters to have someone else deliver their ballot. Others want to limit the people who could handle your ballot. And in general, auditing the vote is difficult, because all ballots, even absentee ballots, once removed from the envelopes, are placed in a large pile, and no one can then determine who voted a particular ballot.

The secret ballot is an important value that American voters cherish. It is in tension with other values such as ease of voting or the need to audit our vote counts. There’s no perfect system of voting, but whether it is insisting on privacy booths at the polling place, or limiting some of the dangers of coercion of voters who cast their ballots outside the polling place, it is important not to forget this long-cherished voter protection.