“Open-records laws in Ohio mean anyone can follow the machines’ paper trail to see who voted for which candidates.”

EvotingOhio’s method of conducting elections with electronic voting machines appears to have created a true privacy nightmare for state residents: revealing who voted for which candidates.

Two Ohio activists have discovered that e-voting machines made by Election Systems and Software and used across the country produce time-stamped paper trails that permit the reconstruction of an election’s results–including allowing voter names to be matched to their actual votes.

[Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com, August 20, 2007: Link]

Via SlashDot.

Comments @ SlashDot
In the UK, polls aren’t really secret either.

In the 1980s (and probably subsequently) it was normal practice for Special Branch to inspect the ballot papers of those who voted for parties which were considered potentially subversive (Communists, BNP, National Front.) They could then match those voting papers to the voters (by dint of the fact that the voter’s name was written on a list next to the voting paper number) and keep a handy database of undesirables.

[Harold Halloway: Link]