There’s no secret ballot outside the voting booth.
A political ad for Kamala Harris featuring a voiceover by actress Julia Roberts has sparked a lot of press coverage, but not for the obvious reason it should. In it a woman and her husband enter a polling place. The husband is clearly supposed to be a Trump supporter, and after he casts his ballot cheerfully tells his wife, “Your turn, honey.” Roberts’ voice comes in here with the message,
“In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want, and no one will ever know…. Remember, what happens in the booth stays in the booth.”
Yup! And that’s not just true for women. The benefit of a secret ballot applies to everyone. Men too.
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But with vote by mail, what happens at the kitchen table does not stay at the kitchen table where, if we are to take the marital dynamic portrayed in the ad as its presented, this husband would be looking over his wife’s shoulder as she made her choice. And he would not allow her to make the “wrong” one. He’d probably just fill out the ballot for her and force her to sign it. Or, if in Vermont where we don’t have signature check or any form of ID for mail in ballots, he’d just sign her name himself and tell the missus to go make him a sandwich.
In such a case – which the Democrats writing the ad must think is rather prevalent if they believe intimidated women voting the way their husbands tell them to is enough to sway the election – this woman has been disenfranchised (and probably received a roughing up for her expressing her political beliefs), and her husband has upended the principle of “one person, one vote” by effectively voting twice. All courtesy of mail in voting!
I’ll turn the scenario around a bit with my own script. Wife riffling through envelopes calls out to husband, “Your ballot arrived in the mail, honey.” Gruff husband distracted by his video game replies, “My vote don’t matter. Throw it away!” Celebrity voice over chimes in, “There’s one place in America a woman can steal her husband’s vote, and no one will ever know…. Remember, what happens at home election officials can’t see!” Husband, “Did you throw my ballot away?” Wife, with a conspiratorial wink at the camera, “Sure did, honey. Granny’s too!” Cut to elderly woman passed out in an easy chair, clearly suffering from dementia.
So, here on the day before actual election day, I want to thank Julia Roberts and Vote Common Good for (I’m sure inadvertently) reminding everybody why requiring voting in person, in private, at a polling place overseen by non-partisan/bi-partisan election officials is so crucial for preserving the integrity our elections and for ensuring the counted results accurately reflect the intent of the voters based on one person, one vote.
Abandoning a process that secures the two core pillars of our election system, the secret ballot and one person/one vote, for one that can’t secure either – vote-by-mail –guarantees that whoever loses an election will have a built-in excuse for not believing or accepting the stated outcome. This very dangerous and, not a recipe for healthy, peaceful, trusting society.
But, all that said, get out there and vote! This is the system we have, and we still need to win elections – if only to fix how we run elections! If you are voting in Vermont, make sure to bring your mailed out ballot with you to the polls on Tuesday, November 5th. If you lost it or never received it (yeah, fun feature), you can still vote in person. Don’t mail your mail-in ballot because it will not arrive in time to be counted. (Great system, I know.) Still, I ALWAYS vote, as every citizen should. If nothing else, it gives me the right to complain, which I prize highly – and you are not entitled to that if you do not vote. So, vote!
And if Trump wins tomorrow via a narrow margin in Pennsylvania or Michigan, our friends on the Left can spend the next four years wondering if it was all thanks to tens of thousands of women who had to fill out their mail-in ballots under the inspecting glare of their MAGA husbands in the seclusion of their own living rooms, courtesy of the vote-by-mail election policies they themselves championed.
