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For a long time, voting was public. A landlord, a boss, or a party agent could watch the hand or the voice. The secret ballot, sometimes called the Australian ballot, spread because privacy was the point: a vote you cannot prove to a patron is a vote the patron cannot buy with a look. Secrecy here is not shame. It is the condition of an honest choice.

The secret ballot exists so nobody powerful can watch how you vote.

Australian ballot · Encyclopaedia Britannica · 1856 · Factapp