Ballots, Transparency, and Democracy

Abstract

Over the past decade, the issue of election auditing has become prominent in election administration. One component of such auditing is whether voted ballots should be available for public review by any interested individuals. In this article, we discuss the potential problems that might arise from public accessibility to executed election ballots. Specifically, we note that the public disclosure of voted ballots may compromise the secrecy of individuals and alter their election choices. Such violations of privacy-or even the appearance of such violations-could open a wide array of opportunities for election fraud, dissuade marginal voters from election participation, and potentially distort democratic outcomes.