We have a right to BOTH. Some election officials have been conflating these two issues, claiming that if we examine ballots we can see how people voted. Now, this raises a stunning question: If this is so, that means that election officials and vendors can also figure out how you voted.
We all need to grab a cleaver and chop these two rights into the two distinct rights that they are. The right to inspect; the right to privacy.
AS FOLLOWS:
RIGHT TO INSPECT - The public, in exercising its right to self govern, and under principles of Freedom of Information, has a right to examine the original evidence (the ballots) to authenticate reported results in elections.
But Washington State has denied 21 separate requests from citizens to inspect the ballots; the state of New Hampshire secretly excluded ballots from its Right to Know law in 2003; and Colorado election officials fought all the way to the state supreme court trying to hide ballots from the public (they lost; the court affirmed citizen right to inspect ballots).
Ballots are anonymous. Or at least, that's the way it's supposed to be.
On Monday, August 6, 1945, after six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities,...
In its 38 years of existence, the USA TODAY Editorial Board has never endorsed a candidate for president....
