Voting should be public.
Everybody should see the votes of every other person.
Maybe not before they vote, but certainly after.
Bribery and coercion? Fear of intimidation, getting fired and losing relationships?
These are not problems with public voting itself — these are problems with society.
These are symptoms of deeper issues within society.
Public voting trusts citizens to make reasoned decisions openly. If we believe people must hide their beliefs to stay safe, we’re admitting democracy has already failed.
If you have to hide your core beliefs from people in your life to avoid them cutting you off, what sort of relationship is that, really?
Do you really have anything deep and real together?
If you can be bribed to sell your vote, did it ever truly have any value to you?
The fear isn’t that votes will be bought. The fear is that too many people already don’t care. Public voting doesn’t create the apathy — it exposes it. And maybe that’s exactly what we need if we want to fix it.
And who are the people doing the bribing?
Would that not just be a symptom of the real problem — poverty and financial subjugation and massive wealth inequality?