[dsernst]

1) For context, that's already trivially true for all vote-by-mail voting: bring your blank ballot into the office, and give it to me signed-but-blank. Possible for in-person voting too, using the camera in your pocket.

2) Nonetheless, we have spent the last year developing advanced tools for coercion-resistance: https://siv.org/overrides. This allows voters-under-pressure to fake a vote the demanded way, then secretly get it nullified to cast their true choices — while still not allowing election admins or malware to cheat. Was available for all voters, but no one asked to use it.

[jltsiren]

Mail voting should be limited to special situations anyway, as it's obviously a bad idea when the stakes are high.

When you vote in person, there is nothing that connects the ballot you photographed to the ballot you cast. Surveillance at the polling station might notice that you requested a new ballot, but it's an even bigger problem for your override. If you were coerced to vote in a certain way, you definitely don't want to be seen anywhere near the polling station.

[dsernst]

This was a special situation because of a mid-term early retirement. The standard practice, responsible for 25% of the current state legislature, is a handful of party insiders deciding the appointed replacement. That process has little-to-no coercion-resistance, often not even secret voting, with a lot of egos and status games in play.

I hear you on wanting to limit mail voting. I agree there are many challenges there: not only coercion, but also voter authentication, ballot chain-of-custody, and delays. Many of the summer 2020 results were delayed by 2 weeks while all the mail-in ballots continued to be counted.

With that said, there's also considerations about accessibility. In this particular case, every last voter had the option to vote in-person, with 5 different polling locations staffed by volunteers over 3 days. Despite that, 50x as many people voted digitally as came in-person. For context, this district is also very rural, spread out over a huge area. If you limit voting to exclusively in-person, some people will take the time and effort to make it work, but certainly not all. People may start using phrases like "voter suppression". :'(

To be clear, I agree with all of the issues you bring up, and care about them too. Why we spent the last year working to develop strong coercion-resistance tools. I just want to highlight the tradeoffs in play.

Re voter coercion, in-person voting security is not exactly Fort Knox — it's almost all volunteers. If a coercer really wants to force a particular vote, they can demand a video recording, not just a photo, with the voter first marking the ballot then walking up to drop it into the ballot box. Sometimes it may be caught, but it's far from guaranteed. Becomes even easier as glasses-with-cameras become more widespread (I see some for $40 on Amazon).

Re vote-by-mail— the reality is, in the 2024 Presidential election at least, the vast majority of voters had it as an option. A quick search is showing me over 75% of Americans live in states with no-excuse mail voting. It's easy to say "oh yeah, that shouldn't be allowed". But now feels like goalpost moving, and not dealing with the situation as it is.