Abstract
Recently, Bart Engelen and Thomas Nys have offered an analysis of some of the nondeliberative properties of the secret ballot. This marks an interesting theoretical approach that I will build upon in this paper. I do this by identifying and discussing three areas of tension between deliberative ideals and secretive voting. I divide these areas into three separate categories – which I label the justificatory tension, the self-regarding tension, and the sincerity tension. I argue that both the justificatory tension and the self-regarding tension signify substantial areas of tension between the current practice of secretive voting and some of the ideals within deliberative democracy. In the last section of the paper, I argue that one way to reduce the tension between the practice of secretive voting and deliberative ideals is to adopt an epistemic approach to deliberation.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Public Reason |
Volume | Volume 11 (Special Issue) |
Issue number | No. 1 |
Pages (from-to) | 27-43 |
Number of pages | 18 |
ISSN | 2065-7285 |
Publication status | Published - 2019 |
Keywords
- deliberative democracy
- secret ballot
- public voting
- ethics of voting