Suchergebnisse

Recently, Bart Engelen and Thomas Nys have offered an analysis of some of the nondeliberative properties of the secret ballot. This marks an interesting theoretical approach that I will build upon in this paper. I do this by identifying and discussing three areas of tension between deliberative ideals and secretive voting. I divide these areas into three separate categories – which I label the justificatory tension, the self-regarding tension, and the sincerity tension. I argue that both the justificatory tension and the self-regarding tension signify substantial areas of tension between the current practice of secretive voting and some of the ideals within deliberative democracy. In the last section of the paper, I argue that one way to reduce the tension between the practice of secretive voting and deliberative ideals is to adopt an epistemic approach to deliberation.

In this paper, we argue that because of the advent of Artificial Intelligence, the secret ballot is now much less effective at protecting voters from voting related instances of social ostracism and social punishment. If one has access to vast amounts of data about specific electors, then it is possible, at least with respect to a significant subset of electors, to infer with high levels of accuracy how they voted in a past election. Since the accuracy levels of Artificial Intelligence are so high, the practical consequences of someone inferring one's vote are identical to the practical consequences of having one's vote revealed directly under an open voting regime. Therefore, if one thinks that the secret ballot is at least partly justified because it protects electors against voting related social ostracism and social punishment, one should be morally troubled by how Artificial Intelligence today can be used to infer individual electors' past voting behaviour.

Abstract
We show how to lawfully buy an election. The key things that make it possible to buy an election are the existence of public voter registration lists and the existence of Big Data Analytics that can predict how a given elector will vote in an election. Someone interested in buying an election can enter an employment contract with some of the opponent electors where these electors are paid to do a job that prevents them from voting. By purchasing access to public voter registration lists, it is possible to verify ex post whether the opponent electors have abstained. In the last two sections, we discuss several barriers that can undermine an attempt to buy an election in the manner we identify.

Abstract
In this article, we argue that anyone who accepts that (1) voting should be compulsory, (2) voting should be secret, and (3) voting should be done by paper ballot ends up with a morally problematic position. In electoral systems where compulsory voting is implemented and the secret paper ballot is in place, it is impossible for officials to check if an elector has cast a valid vote. Therefore, only those who fail to show up at the polls are penalized under the law of compulsory voting. Those electors who show up at the polls but do not vote are not penalized. We argue that this practice amounts to officially sanctioned unequal enforcement of a law, and that such a practice is morally problematic. We then argue that this problem should be solved by rejecting compulsory voting in favor of true mandatory attendance, that is, a regime where the law on the books requires only showing up at the polls on election day as opposed to formally requiring that electors actually cast a valid vote. This is so since only mandatory attendance can be enforced without infringing on the secret ballot, and the law on the books ought to reflect what is actually enforced in practice.