The big question touching a nerve this election: "Can my husband find out who I am voting for?"

ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net to News@lemmy.world – 520 points –
"Can my husband find out who I am voting for?": The big question touching a nerve this election
salon.com

Can my husband find out who I am voting for in the Presidential Election?"

Olivia Dreizen Howell, the founder of a website to help women get back on their feet after a breakup or divorce, tweeted last week, "We've been getting this question a lot," so she followed up with some facts. As the Washington Post confirmed with experts, the answer is simple: "No; it will be public record that you voted, but not how you filled out your ballot."

The GOP ticket is led by a sexual predator who a jury found "'raped' [journalist E. Jean Carroll] as many people commonly understand the word 'rape,'" the judge in the case wrote. His running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has called for a national abortion ban, wrote the forward to a book that denounced contraception for making pregnancy "seem like an optional and not natural result of having sex," and repeatedly called women who haven't given birth "sociopathic" and "childless cat ladies."

Meanwhile, the Democratic ticket is led by a woman who chose "Freedom" by Beyoncé as her campaign song, and has dispensed with the mealy-mouthed language about abortion rights to declare she stands for "the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body." Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, her running mate, has decried "weird" MAGA Republicans of the "he-man woman haters’ club."

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The big question touching a nerve this election: "Can my husband find out who I am voting for?"

That's one of those questions I feel like, if you find yourself asking it, you should probably get out of that marriage. (I know easier said than done)

Honestly. As a guy who is lefty (and bi, but mostly dates women). The dating scene has been way easier these past 5 or so years.

The political male-female divide means that right wing women, and left wing men, are far more “in demand” among heterosexual people. (queer people are majoritarily leftwing so it matters less there.)

Peter Thiel is really suffering though... and we can celebrate that.

I hate that guy so fucking much. It really disenchanted me from NZ that they literally sold him citizenship.

You're thinking about it the wrong way. We should be thanking NZ for pulling them all to one central location.

He’s not actually living in NZ. He just bought citizenship which allowed him to buy the native and protected lands he wanted to buy (only citizens are allowed to buy them).

Yes, but that was so he could install his bunker there like all the other paranoid billionaires, yes?

Hows the concrete industry in NZ? I imagine that sealing all those bunkers will be a priority once the rich assholes have locked themselves inside.

Concrete for the doors, kerosene down the air vents. Don't even bother lighting it, just seal the vents with concrete or silicon afterwards.

I say let all the billionaires live in bunkers. When the apocalypse comes and we're all scavenging to survive. The bunkers just made you a target as it advertises that you have supplies.

I certainly can celebrate that. I’m stuck reading his stupid book “Zero to One” for a work extracurricular. Can’t wait to discuss it with the EVP who chose it.

"work extracurricular" oof stolen wages

Not really. It’s not mandatory. I generally love where I work, so I signed up for this. Didn’t know this would be book 1. If the reading selection continues at this quality level p, I’ll happily drop out and go back to reading all the Bosch universe books!

That's one of those questions I feel like, if you find yourself asking it, you should probably get out of that marriage. (I know easier said than done)

Why do you think Republicans want to get rid of no fault divorce?

The fact that people put up with partners that make them wonder this is not great.

Many marriages are still fundamentally financial arrangements. Living together is cheaper, especially with kids. And when you own half of each other's stuff (particularly when that stuff is real estate or retirement or cars) decoupling isn't simple.

My parents have been married for 35 years cause it's cheaper than getting divorced.

Getting a divorce is really cheap if you just do it yourself. If they're capable of living together for 35 years, they should be able to manage signing a few documents together.

The literal and figurative cost of divorce has little to do with handling the paperwork.

Adjusting living arrangements and insurance and other assets isn't as easy or straight forward though. And if everything has to be intermingled why go to the time of doing the paper work.

I did estate planning with my GF because I want to make sure she's okay if something happens to me. It cost $1000. We could have gotten the same legal protections by getting married for $150. And we're both still paying single person tax rates.

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I don't know...if my wife voted for trump we might have impassible dispositions. I'd have to rethink some shit.

I'll never understand women and minorities that are for Trump.

Older women in my family—with the best of intentions, have pleaded with me to overlook abusive, violent men at home because men just can't help the way they are and it's a woman's job to forget and make peace.

These are people that fundamentally don't think they have a right to baseline respect in their own homes by the people who supposedly loved them most. They'd need a decade's worth of therapy just to find their best interests, and then another to act on them.

I've said it a couple times now, conservative women are some of the most brainwashed on the planet. They're literally voting their rights away. It's sad cause I wish they had all the resources they need and want but they vote against themselves constantly.

Emotional/psychological/sometimes physical abuse can do that to someone. Especially after the slow, deliberate dismantling of your social circle that sociopaths like to do. Add to that the stigma of being a single mom....

It's not ideal. Alas, people change, and sometimes you realize you're stuck in situations where bailing would cause undue hardship to your kids, so you try to make it work.

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My wife is going to vote for Harris/Walz. She's told me several times. I think I'm gonna vote for them too.

My wife wanted to sit out the election when it was Biden running over his unending support of the slaughter in Gaza, and the only thing that got her out to vote was that the were also some ballot measures which needed votes. I wrote on Cenk Uyger for the primary myself, not sure how she voted. Now we're both super excited to vote for Harris/Walz

Obviously we've got fairly similar political views

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Honestly, I love that my wife is a childless cat lady. It makes everything cheaper and easier. My life is better because I don't have kids, and I'm happy that we made that choice together as rational adults and that we were able to agree that this is the best path for us.

Anyone who chooses to have kids based on their values and circumstances is totally cool, whatever, as long as the kids aren't being abused or neglected, of course. That's your option and I respect it - someone has to have 'em.

But if you don't think people are capable of making the choice not to have kids and that it makes them sociopaths to not have kids, I'm pretty sure you're just an authoritarian who either hates women or has a breeding fetish. Maybe both.

Considering the sheer strain on the body pregnancy and birth have, I feel like being a mysoginist would automatically qualify one for a breeding fetish

To be fair, not having children is hard on a woman's body as well. Increased risks for uterine, ovarian, and breast cancers to name only a few.

Patriarchal medical providers often don't inform childless women of this and don't encourage additional and more regular cancer screenings.

They just ignore women's concerns, sometimes until it's too late--an all too familiar story for women and the history of medicine.

Cheaper? My childless catlady wife spends a fortune on our elder cats with health problems.

I have no problem with it, that's what I knew I was marrying. But they certainly aren't cheap. The vets know us like we're regulars.

Still cheaper than if you had to pay for human health problems (in the USA at least)

You'd think that. I know someone that spent $50,000 back in the '90s trying to save her collie that had cancer.

Have you looked at the cost of day care? And diapers? Or just having a place to live with the extra necessary bedrooms? Pre pandemic I read some article that (as I vaguely remember) estimated it costs at least $100k to raise a child to 18 in the US. I imagine it's closer to $150k or more by now. Probably way more.

You can always put down your cats. Gotta pay if that kid has cancer tho.

Gotta pay if that kid has cancer tho.

Not if you choose the power of prayer as treatment.

The pious man's euthanasia.

Last presidential election here in Brazil some churches were asking their people to swap children with other couples so that those children could keep watch to ensure everybody is voting for the right candidate (children are the only ones allowed to join you in the voting booth).

Christians are such cucks. Imagine being a part of a church that uses children to snitch on you to other congregants.

In God we trust.

Everybody else needs to be surveilled by children when voting. I don't make the rules

As someone who's worked multiple elections, your ballot is never tied to your name/ID. Even if someone broke into the box and stole the ballots, there's no way to know whos is who.

When ballots are audited/recounted, its based on things like the number of ballots vs the number of recorded voters, the signature of the precinct officer, and the qualities of the ballot itself. No identifying informationm.

This is not even remotely true for mail in ballots. They are returned in an envelope that has your name, address and signature on it.

Honest question : on mail in ballots even though you name is on the envelope, doesn't the envelope get separated from the ballot? So there is no real way to know who voted for whom? @recklessengagement@lemmy.world

My state mail in procedure is to send your ballot in an envelope without identifying info, and that envelope goes inside a larger envelope so they can verify you. I assume they separate it for counting later

I have worked elections too. Can confirm. The ballot is separated from identifying info once validated.

True, but once they are recieved, they're seperated from the identifying information. It's not stored in a database somewhere.

The only time I'd argue this isn't the case would be for provisional ballots, where they often will send you a letter after it gets processed.

"Mind your own business". Of course some men, mostly Republican men, think they own their wives.

Imagine how it has come down to this.

I salute the women, minorities, and all folks who have decency and do the right thing during this and all other elections. Let's all please be sure to vote.

How is this a big question? Isn’t this common knowledge, one of the first things you learn about voting?

learn about voting

these are fox news households were talkin about.. they want less voting, not more

Voting is not something we do everyday or for most people even every year. Sometimes Democrat and Republican primaries are held in different rooms or at different locations, So if this is your first time or that's all you know, it's a real question.

The polling places in some rural municipalities are literally Masonic lodges where they make you announce out loud to all in attendance which primary you want to vote in.

Wait. There are places where your primary party is not public knowledge when you vote? Fuuuck. (it's usually a fire hall, not a lodge in my experience.)

I'll fully admit to being completely ignorant about voting the first time I did it. I was politically disengaged for moody teenager reasons, but my parents forced me to go to the polling station anyway. I didn't care to vote for any of the candidates, but was also worried that I would get in trouble if I spoiled my ballot because I hadn't paid attention in civics (again, for moody teenager reasons).

They definitely made a big deal about it when I was in elementary school.

Important to note that the same is not true for political donations. Idk what the cutoff is but even relatively small amounts get reported to the FEC and make their way into various searchable public databases. Just something to keep in mind if you're in a vulnerable situation.

Nobody can know who you voted for in the booth unless you tell them. Just that you voted. Ballots are unsigned and you place it in the box (supervised, but folded and unexamined) yourself.

I mean, mail in ballots are signed. At least, the envelope containing them is. There's that.

An abusive husband could loom over the wife as they filled it in too. Is why I said 'in the booth'.

Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, her running mate,

But is he her running mate though?

They just wanted to make sure you know they are running together and exercising appropriately as good examples for America!

The answer is no, BUT, if you're that worried about it, perhaps your choice of husband is a problem.

Uhh I think there's a much bigger issue then elections there

No, but they can generally find out what party you're registered to if your state does things as such.

The answer to the headline is "No".

This is an issue with voting by mail in any country.

What are you talking about

When both spouses vote together by mail at home, one may want to see what the other is submitting and condition them to vote the way they want.

There are a lot of solutions to that problem. Fill out your vote when the other isn't home, vote in person, leave your spouse, etc. Doesn't seem like much of a problem to me

haha, leave your spouse :)

But really, I can see an abusive overbearing or just manipulative family member definitely doing this. It may not be statistically significant enough to impact an election, but there is no way to ensure there was no coercion.

Jesus Christ I'm not going down that rabbit hole. I realize the most dangerous thing an abused person can do is try to leave the relationship, but that's only one of the several options I listed. I genuinely don't understand why you're criticizing mail in ballots; my best guess is that you've seen enough far right propaganda that you genuinely think giving more people more access to voting is a bad thing.

It's not an agenda against mail-in ballots, it's just a minor flaw I noticed with some friends that is relevant to the title, but for some reason I seem to have offended the gods of voting turnout by stating it in a public forum. Seriously, some people perk their ears for the littlest reason.

...But that's ok...sometimes one can trigger the immune response in a community by saying something that could be misconstrued as contrarian.

The GOP ticket is led by a sexual predator who a jury found “‘raped’ [journalist E. Jean Carroll

Meanwhile, the Democratic ticket is led by a woman who chose “Freedom” by Beyoncé as her campaign song

Okay, but what about women's rights to health care? Do they have legislative priorities? Which one of these candidates is willing to stack the court or assign reproductive rights lawyers to the DOJ? Any forthcoming executive actions? Policies? Anything?

Was it really that hard to read the whole sentence?

and has dispensed with the mealy-mouthed language about abortion rights to declare she stands for "the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body."

declare she stands for “the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body.”

Okay, so what does this means as actual policy? Is she appointing the head of NARAL her AG or is she just going to put a bumper sticker on Air Force One?

And THIS is why unlimited vote by mail isn't as great as some people think.

Why?

Just going to preface this by saying that I absolutely do support vote by mail, it's objectively a good thing

However, there's a problem that should be considered in that it can create opportunities for coerced voting either within a household, or by requiring someone to send a photo of their form.

The former being more of a problem than the later

Where should a just and equal society draw the line, though? A person's partner can also use Life360 (or another app) to monitor their whereabouts and prohibit them from getting a job so they can't save up money to escape - does that mean we shouldn't have phones or that tracking apps should be restricted?

In a country like the US, where voting lines can literally be 8 hours long and employers don't have to pay you while you take time during the day to vote, can you guys afford to limit mail-in voting due to extremely specific scenarios in which abuse may occur?

It appears (from my position as someone who has not been in an abusive relationship) like we could more comprehensively tackle this issue with legislation that covers more situations that are directly coercive in nature (like your mail-in ballot being tampered with, regardless of your consent).

At the same time, I am a bit of an idiot, so I do genuinely want to read your perspective about how you think things should be. I am almost certainly not considering every avenue here, given that I lack first-hand experience with abusive relationships and have only really heard stories from friends and family (some of whom do have first- or second-hand experience).

does that mean we shouldn't have phones or that tracking apps should be restricted?

It is not my intent to equate "x has problem y" with "x should not exist" very good systems can and do get abused and misused.

There's a reason I started my comment with

Mail-in voting is objectively a good thing

All I'm saying is that maybe there should be a way for people to go back and override their votes (which admittedly could probably also be abused in some situations), or better yet, just better social safety nets to help people get out of those situations. I'm not suggesting I have all of the answers, just acknowledging that the person at the top of the thread raises a valid, if possibly overstated, concern.

Because your abusive spouse/preacher/etc. can make you show your ballot, or even mark it for you.

You can still go vote in person.

I think you don't appreciate abusive and controlling relationships for how bad they can be

a) some states are pure vote by mail. b) if you have the option of voting at home, that exact same abuser can make you exercise it.

I used to oppose VBM because of this. Now I see it as a trade off since there are also benefits that can outweigh the problems. But a person with their eyes open should not pretend that the problems don't exist.

Which states? I am not aware of any that are solely vote by mail.

If you wanted to, it would be easy to screw up your ballot request. Throw it out when you get it, mess up the form, forget to sign, offer to take it to the post office and never mail it... Then it's "oh no it never came, let's just go vote in person".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_voting_in_the_United_States#All_vote-by-mail

And, the existence of methods to escape abusers prevents some instances of abuse, but doesn't eliminate the problem.

From the article you linked

As of 2022, California mails every registered voter a ballot before the elections, but there is still the option to vote in-person

Yes, that is California. In the exact same paragraph, other states are listed which don't offer the option. Oregon was the one that came to my mind immediately.

The issue is, having an option to do something the right way is not all that helpful. If there is an option to do it the wrong way, attackers (using "attacker" in the sense of computer security) will do what they can to make you use that option, so they can exploit it. Therefore, security systems should make doing the wrong thing impossible, rather than merely making the right thing possible.

You're correct, I should have been more thorough.

Here's one of the sources cited by that Wikipedia article:

Mostly-Mail Elections (aka Vote-by-Mail, All-Mail or Vote-at-Home Elections) What Are Mostly-Mail Elections? In mostly-mail elections, all registered voters are sent a ballot through the mail. The voter marks the ballot, puts it in a secrecy sleeve or envelope if required, places it in a separate mailing envelope, signs an affidavit on the exterior of the mailing envelope or otherwise provides verification of their identify and then returns the ballot via mail or by dropping it off at an approved return location.

Ballots are mailed out well ahead of Election Day, and thus voters have an “election period,” not just a single day, to vote. Mostly-mail elections can be thought of as absentee voting for everyone. This system is also referred to as “vote-by-mail” or all-mail ballot elections. While “mostly-mail elections” means that every registered voter receives a ballot by mail, this does not preclude in-person voting opportunities on or before Election Day. For example, even though all registered voters in Colorado are mailed a ballot, voters can choose instead to cast a ballot at an in-person vote center during the early voting period or on Election Day.

According to this, "All mail elections" are not different from "mostly mail" elections, and doesn't preclude the use of in person voting.

Also

systems should make doing the wrong thing impossible

Please no, imo that's an incredibly fucked line of reasoning

According to this, “All mail elections” are not different from “mostly mail” elections, and doesn’t preclude the use of in person voting.

You can't vote in person in Oregon. There are no voting booths in the state. It is ALL done by mail, the way I heard it.

"Casting a ballot at a polling place" is not "voting in person". I sometimes cast my own ballots (California) at polling places. That is, fill in the ballot at home, and drop it off at the polling station instead of mailing it. Voting in person means there is a physical voting booth that you enter, close the curtain, and THEN make your voting choices, in an environment where no one else can see them. Poll workers are supposed to make sure that nobody goes into the booth with you, with some exceptions for disabled people (there are similar exceptions for absentee voting in non-VBM states). It's against the law to photograph your filled-in ballot inside the booth, though in the phone camera era that has become near impossible to enforce.

Please no, imo that’s an incredibly fucked line of reasoning

It is what you have to do in a secure system. Voting (like retail loss prevention) is of course a security vs convenience trade-off, so you might choose to allow the insecure approach at least some of the time. Again, a person with their eyes open has to be aware of all the issues and reach an informed conclusion. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downgrade_attack

Yeah, ok, that sucks. Oregon should still try to make actual polling locations available for people who need (or want) it.

I still don't think that that's a reason to abandon vote by mail altogether. The accessibility of it reduces the impact of other voting problems we have in the us overall.

I'm still going to push back hard on the idea that the system has to be 100% perfect. So long as humans are involved, that simply isn't possible.

There are always going to be tradeoffs.

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What do you mean by that?

See the discussion? VBM means you fill in your ballot at home, while your husband potentially watches. As opposed to voting with a secret ballot in a voting booth with the curtain closed.

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