We don’t really have an election day anymore, but that’s not what I wish to address.

Of great concern, and mentioned hardly at all, is that with all the non-voting-booth balloting we have partially eliminated the secret ballot.

The origin of the secret ballot rather than public voting or voting on privately distributed ballot slips was to inhibit influencing voter choices or vote buying.

For a decade now the notion of “selfies”, with marked ballot in hand, has been a free speech vs. ballot secrecy, issue. In NYS the highest court has ruled that the state has a “compelling governmental interest” in restricting disclosing a completed ballot.

Our law (New York Election Law § 17-130(10)) deems it a misdemeanor if any person: “Shows his ballot after it is prepared for voting, to any person so as to reveal the contents, or solicits a voter to show the same.”

This extends to far more than ballot “selfies”.

With the widespread use of absentee ballots, many, by some estimate hundreds of thousands in NY and millions across the country, are breaking the law by sharing their ballots.

The peer pressure of social media, the family pressure of spouse, siblings, parents, or children, is as surely affecting (some) voting, as is the upsurge in vote buying. People are determining and showing their votes as virtual signaling to friends or the “one finger salute” to foes.

Now, thankfully, there have been no prosecutions for the at home practices, but the widespread, actual fraud, of a person filling in another one’s ballot: family member, deceased person, patients who are incompetent/incapacitated, is estimated to range in the millions of cases.

It is clear that paragraph 17-130(10) does not make exceptions for family members or nursing homes, and the provisions apply equally at, or near, a polling place, as well as remotely.

And it is also undeniable that the vote is meant to express an individual and private choice, not that of social media followers, family, or care providers.

Just don’t. And just say no to those who ask. If you’ve already sinned, don’t do it again.

Bob Prener

Grahamsville