Honestly I don't understand why we can't have cameras installed at ALL voting-related facilities.
Can you tell a camera's field of view by looking at it? Could your grandparents? Trusting systems that secure the vote is much easier when they are designed resist being changed to abet oppression.
1. verify who is voting
2. verify trail from voter to count
3. no extra votes
4. no discarded votes
But, of course, if you had a camera, voters might reasonably be worried that you would combine the footage with vote order and figure our who voted when.
This doesn't seem hard at all to do right.
However, that's not the standard. The standard is avoiding the appearance of being able to track votes. I don't trust the people who make voting machine software or the government. You don't know that your voting tabulation software correctly anonymizes the results and you shouldn't need that technical knowledge to feel safe. The correct approach is to make a system that guarantees what we want and would be impossible for a bad actor to abuse.
Any gaps in that leads to suspicion of error and fraud. That leads to bad things, as recent events amply illustrated.
Yes, it can be done while still having a secret ballot.
No such system is possible
As the recent US elections showed, voting machines are open to the opposition saying "we only lost because the machines were hacked against us".
This is naive. The Georgia Presidential election was hand-recounted, twice. The loser still claims it was stolen, incited an insurrection that sacked the Capitol while Congress was certifying the winner.
When one party is solely dedicated to power, not democracy, none of your ideals or safeguards mean anything. They just don't care what anyone thinks as long as they can hold power.
You also want protection against discovering who voted at all!
> During this portion, the NLRB will read off each voter’s name and both sides will be allowed to contest ballots, likely based on factors such as whether an employee’s job title entitles them to vote or an illegible signature. Any contested ballots will be set aside.
>...Amazon had sought to place a video camera in the NLRB’s Birmingham office, where votes will be tabulated, to keep an eye on the ballot boxes in the off hours between counting, according to an NLRB order denying Amazon’s request. The camera feed would have been accessible by both Amazon and the RWDSU.
It says that the cameras would "keep an eye on the ballot boxes in the off hours between counting" which seems... perfectly reasonable to me.
It looks like they aren't anonymous?!
First, go through all of the envelopes, reading the names, and either side can contest ballots, which are set aside.
Then, the uncontested ballots are removed from the envelopes and counted.
If the vote margin is less than the number of contested ballots, that kicks off some kind of remediation process.
Just look at this thread and how much confusion over what the cameras are recording.
Cameras would limit the secret part.