>Hi Bruce,
>I would think it's an absolutely fundamental requirement that who you vote for can be secret. Otherwise we will see the re-emergance of "press" gangs (no pun intended) to buy/threaten etc your vote.

Yes, others have pointed this out - though we have no problem in my state with traceable ballots, as it is a well-guarded secret and requires judicial action to access. In fact, the reverse of the secrecy issue is a large benefit - we have uncovered and prosecuted voter fraud using this as a legal tool. So, I'm in favor of the record-keeping after witnessing the fraud in my state, I think the sanctity of the election system is more important than the individual's right to absolute privacy.

However, to allay anyone's privacy concern, some suggestions have been made as to a compromise resolution: the voter keeps the unique ballot ID receipt tab (as we already do in my state), so the ballot is traceable from the voter's end only - but no election record is kept of the ballot ID tied to a voter.

That could be done at a national level, and perhaps individual states could retain the right to track (or not track) ballots systematically as they see fit, as is now done in the current state-by-state system.