But openness has its limits, and everybody has a zone of privacy that any free society is obligated to respect. And whatever your politics, one of the most sacrosanct of these has always been the voting booth. Democracy requires a secret ballot.
Nobody has the right to put a camera under the curtain. In Michigan, we take that even more seriously than most other states. We don’t even have party registration.
If any one tells you they are a registered Republican or Democrat, they really aren’t. When I walk out of a voting booth in August, nobody will have the right to know who I voted for.
And I am also allowed to keep secret whether I voted in the Democratic or Republican Primaries. That’s how it’s been here forever, giving voters a maximum of privacy and freedom.
And I’ll bet that’s how a majority of us like it.
This time, however, the politicians attempted to hijack the process. Anyone who wanted to vote in this year’s presidential primary not only had to declare a party. They had to do so with the expectation that their name and how they voted would be turned over to both major political parties, to use in whatever way they wished.
In other words, they could plaster on a billboard that “Mrs. Millicuddy voted in the Republican primary,” if they wanted to.
Right from the start, I thought that was outrageous. Now as you know, I don’t mind hanging my opinions out for everybody to see.
But not everyone is like that – nor should they be required to be. I personally know three people who didn’t vote in the primary because they didn’t want anyone to know what party they were voting for. I think that was one factor in why the turnout was so low.
What’s even more outrageous is why the parties did this. They wanted to get lists of people they could hit up for contributions.
When I found out that the law said the parties could have copies of these lists and nobody else could, I was first outraged.
But then I was reassured, because I knew that meant the law was almost certain to be declared unconstitutional. And it was.
So since collecting these lists was illegal, it stands to reason that they should not be public information. That means they should be destroyed, or at the very least, sealed until we are all dead, in case they prove of interest to future historians.
However, if it helps, I will offer a compromise.
You can have my voting record. You’ll find I voted in the Republican primary, and everyone is welcome to hit me with their best fund-raising junk mail anytime.
My garbage can, by the way, is very close to the street.
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