<story><title>My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania</title><url>https://portal.drewdevault.com/2020/11/10/2020-Election-worker.gmi</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>estebank</author><text>As a non-citizen who had a chance to observe how the process works in California, I was struck by how little emphasis is put in the secrecy of the vote. The whole system looks reasonable &lt;i&gt;except&lt;/i&gt; for how easy it can be for poll workers to know what you voted for.&lt;p&gt;Beyond that, the system is clearly geared towards increasing participation and enfranchising as many people as possible (a good thing in a democratic system).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wnissen</author><text>Based on my long experience in California, I have no idea what you could be referring to. I am given ballot(s) in an opaque folder, mark my choices in a booth enclosed on three sides, and feed the ballots into the machine myself. There&amp;#x27;s no way for a poll worker to observe me making the choices, or the marked ballot. I suppose in theory they could use the order in which people enter to locate a ballot after the fact, but that would involve riffling through a stack of ballots!&lt;p&gt;Voting is county by county, and it is run by human beings that make mistakes, but in the dozens of times I have voted the secrecy of my ballot has been entirely up to me. Party affiliation is not a secret, true, it is a public record. But the actual Please provide a lot more context than &amp;quot;how easy it can be&amp;quot; or please delete your post.</text></comment>
<story><title>My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania</title><url>https://portal.drewdevault.com/2020/11/10/2020-Election-worker.gmi</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>estebank</author><text>As a non-citizen who had a chance to observe how the process works in California, I was struck by how little emphasis is put in the secrecy of the vote. The whole system looks reasonable &lt;i&gt;except&lt;/i&gt; for how easy it can be for poll workers to know what you voted for.&lt;p&gt;Beyond that, the system is clearly geared towards increasing participation and enfranchising as many people as possible (a good thing in a democratic system).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>brandmeyer</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s variation state-to-state.  In NC (1996-2012 at least), no poll workers touch ballots with identifying information in them.  On entry to the polling place, a sticker is placed beside your name on a physical rollbook to keep track of who has and hasn&amp;#x27;t voted.  The poll worker hands you your ballot which you take to a privacy booth to mark your choices.  The voter personally inserts the anonymous ballot into the counting machine.&lt;p&gt;CO has universal mailings.  You mail (or drop off) your ballot in a double envelope, and only the outer envelope carries identifying information.  One workstation examines the outer envelope to track who voted, and a different workstation processes the anonymous ballots.  It requires a little more trust on the part of the voter, but also encourages more participation.</text></comment>