Why not just publish the votes?
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Why not just publish the votes?
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July 22, 2026
Regardless of your political affiliation, it is hard to disagree with the fact that voter confidence is a pillar of democracy. I am writing this because of the recent announcements made by Trump about foreign actors meddling in our elections. I am not an expert in voting systems, I have no background in politics, no major in Political Science. I have not spent any time reviewing voter fraud data and have no opinion one way or another about whether the recently announced voter fraud is real, but that is not the point of this. The point of this is to frame an idea that might help increase voter confidence in elections.
Here's the idea: publish the votes.
Imagine the following scenario:
You cast your vote<br>You receive a randomized ID after casting your vote<br>You remember the ID or write it down on your phone's notes app or on a piece of paper<br>Each vote is published online<br>You simply search for your randomized ID and can personally verify your vote<br>At the same time, you can personally verify that totals are correct<br>What this would do:<br>Allow everyone who voted to independently verify that their vote was correctly recorded<br>Allow anyone (not just those who voted) to independently verify that the candidate that received the majority of the votes actually won<br>Some objections that I can see to this (and my responses in line):
What if employers / spouses / union leaders / gang leaders / party bosses start demanding you to show your published vote before paying you / letting you keep your job / position in the party / etc.?<br>One way that might help prevent this is to make it punishable by law to request<br>Maybe you can say that you forgot to write it down or take a picture<br>Maybe you can you someone else's ID that shows up on the online portal<br>Vote buying - plain and simple. If you have a code that verifies how you voted, now you can easily sell your votes?<br>Maybe you can just look up another random voter ID that voted in line with your buyer's will and send that randomized ID? I would think that the game theory of buying votes would break down with just the threat of this being possible.<br>Does this become another attack vector for foreign actors?<br>I'm not a cryptography/cybersecurity expert, but cryptography/cybersecurity experts are smart and I'm confident they can solve this.<br>What if the system genuinely does get someone's vote wrong (or worse, got it right and then pretended that it was wrong--impossible to disprove), seems like viral Facebook reel fodder?<br>Maybe the possibility of the user miskeying a vote is salient enough in the collective public's mind to dismiss such a claim?<br>I doubt that anyone that is bent on pushing a narrative would hesitate to divulge publicly who they voted for, but maybe that would restrain the general public?<br>To be honest, this is the pushback that worries me the most. My sense is that these conspiracists need people to increase fear to gain attention, so if you can independently verify your vote, you would fear a lot less.<br>Isn't this increasing the digital divide? For elderly and low-connectivity voters, wouldn't this create unequal confidence?<br>I would argue the opposite; this creates the widest possible funnel of voters with the ability to audit their votes. I'm not even sure who is in charge of auditing elections today and where those audits are published.<br>It may be the case, but perhaps navigating an online portal to search for an ID is not as complicated as navigating the complex process of registering to vote and transporting yourself to a poll?<br>What are some objections that you have? Add to the list. Let's see if we can collectively come to a solution that would benefit everyone. There is no profit involved here and it is not zero sum. We can genuinely put our collective minds together to improve our country.
Further ideas:<br>Maybe another wrinkle that could be added is IDs are given out randomly. Say, only 85% of voters receive an ID. Then these 85%ers can independently verify. That would mean a conspiracist Facebook group with at least 10 people in it would have a Start this idea at a local level, where elections may have
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