Welcome to these States in 2024. As election day is now underway from Maine to Hawaii, we are seeing the consequences of thousands of actions across the entire length of American history.

At this point, despite bold claims from people across the political diamond, we have no idea of how honest this election – all the races and all the issues – will be. We don’t even know how long it will take to get the ballots tabulated and the votes announced. And we have not the foggiest idea of whether (once it is known) the Electors will actually vote. Or whether Congress (whomever is finally elected) will sustain or reject the vote.

With weeks of early voting as the prelude, we already have dozens of confirmed reports of attempts to wreck some or all of the election. Whether it is on a single local election for dogcatcher, or voting for a senator in a State, or voting for the Electors to choose the next Massa. We know that multiple States have already activated their National Guards – the State’s military forces for fear of what will happen during the day and as the polls close.

Consider, if you will, how much of this mess is the result of the secret ballot. Yes, you are asking what an old-style cowboy has to do with this. Other than represent American traditions and customs (good and bad)? Then please read on.

The point is the quote, of course. We are told that voting for our leaders is our right. And that being able to cast a secret ballot is also a right. And then we are told that we have a responsibility to vote – and to cast a vote for the persons that we believe are the best to carry out the job.

But…

How can we expect people to be responsible in their actions, if there is no way to hold them accountable for their actions? Unless we are held accountable for the consequences, the outcome, of our actions, we can be totally irresponsible. And often are.

But not American voters. We can hide behind the secret ballot.

Think about that. Our County Commissioners, our town and city councilmembers, our State legislators, and neither US Senators nor Congresscritturs must made their vote on an issue, on an appointment, on a replacement, a matter of public record. Even the Electors in the Electoral College must make their vote publically: there is no secret ballot for them.

But for the average citizen casting his or her vote? It is supposed to be totally secret: known only to them and God, Who sees all. It would come as no surprise to know that many people lie about whom they cast a vote for. Or what. Just as they readily lie to the pollsters. There is no accountability – no personal accountability – for how we vote.

Yes, we understand the reason that the secret ballot is now the standard in all 50 States. The stupidity and threat to republican government is the justification: the argument that harassment and intimidation of voters is prevented with a secret ballot. We are told time and again that secrecy and privacy in elections guard against coercion and are essential to integrity in the electoral process. And has other benefits, such as orderliness and quiet, and to prevent election day mobs and riots!

Except, of course, that is not what has happened. We have lived through months of harassment, intimidation, and coercion of would-be and actual voters. (In addition to the browbeating name-calling of the opponents’ supporters and voters.) We still have not eliminated that, no matter how many laws are passed, no matter how much those who would coerce and intimidate others are themselves coerced and intimidated.

That of course is not (by itself) a reason to jettison a cherished tradition or even a law. We know that people will continue to kill other people, no matter how many laws we pass against murder. We know that people will continue to rob, con, and assault people despite the laws. But we also recognize that we need to understand the pros and cons involved. What are the consequences of passing and enforcing a law? Especially one which requires a certain action. (Rather than prohibiting one.)

Why? It is a dirty tale. The right to a secret ballot is not found in the US Constitution, although it has been enshrined in 44 States. (In six States, there are statutes about voting secretly.) And indeed, there was no secret ballot in any States until the 1890s – over 100 years after the Constitution was ratified. Then it was introduced State by State: it was an import from Australia via the United Kingdom.

Prior to that, it turned an important public festival and community activity into what has become the mess we have today. Election days were transformed: privatized, and made intensively bureaucrat, sanitizing and emphasizing the individual. The unaccountable individual.

The fear that prompted this import was that “a worker might not feel able to cast a voice vote that his boss or his landlord wouldn’t like.” As a result, citizens no longer have to answer to one another for their choices. And it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure the integrity of the ballot: too easy to change and add (or take away) ballots. So we create still more bureaucracy and “safeguards” to protect the vote, which just offers more and more opportunity for vote-buying, corruption, and more.

With the advent of electronic voting – and mail-out/mail-in, early voting – the system has grown more and more cumbersome. More subject to fraud and claims of fraud. And as a result: erosion of confidence in voting and the governments that the voting supposedly puts into power.

It is a complex situation, but one needing to be visited now and then, and with the idea that one size does not fit all. What might work in one State, or even in one county or township, does not necessarily work in another. There are strong arguments for calling the secret ballot evil: not through good intentions but because of its results.

But perhaps the key thing for lovers to remember is that voting integrity and how people vote is largely because we have allowed government to have an evil amount of power.