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crickets

(25,969 posts)
5. There is vital importance in the secret ballot
Thu Mar 24, 2022, 10:04 PM
Mar 2022

which curbs corruption and voter coercion and intimidation. In the US by the early/mid 1900s, it had broken the political stranglehold of the Robber Barons. Gee, wonder why someone would want to do away with it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot#United_States

https://congressionalresearch.org/SecretBallot.html

Beginning in the 1830s, the iconic symbol of democracy (as seen in many images below) was the transparent, glass globe, ballot box. But, in the late 1800s with partisanship, campaign finance and inequality soaring to all-time highs, the United States began to roll out the secret ballot. The intentions were clear. Proponents like John Stuart Mill claimed the secrecy of the ballot would curb the power of intimidating landlords and the rampant vote-buying funded by the wealthy.

Now embraced as a ‘cornerstone of modern democracy,’ the secret ballot brought an immediate reduction to election violence, intimidation and bribery. It also curtailed the Robber Barons’ vice-grip control over elections and diminished their hold on the democratic process. By curbing the government capture of the Gilded Age, the secret ballot opened the door for the Progressive Era.
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