Secret Ballots

India has been a democracy for over 60 years now. But from top to bottom, secret bottoms are the norm for making the choices in all kinds of elections.

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_voting, secret voting is a method to ensure that voter's choices are confidential and the key aim is to ensure that voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery.

I consider this a serious failure of democratic system not to be able to provide enough security to their people so that they can express their views in a democratic manner openly.

The situation has degenerated so much that even in our esteemed Lok Sabha, on a number of issues secret ballots are conducted time to time. If even our members of parliament not comfortable in speaking out their opinions in an open ballot then what is the point of having democracy?

Although it is said that secret ballots are a method of ensuring that a voter can make a sincere choice without any kind of intimidation or bribery, the reverse is usually what happens. The secret ballots provide an opportunity for people to make choices without any explanation. It is easy to take bribes and change your votes in a secret ballot mechanism since you are not accountable to explain your choice (nobody actually knows what choice you made).

I would like to ask why the people of an electorate don't have the right to know about the choices made by their representatives to Parliament and other assemblies?

To increase the level of accountability and transparency in our system, it is necessary to phase out secret ballots from various levels of legislature and administration. This includes the Parliament and State assemblies, Intra-Party elections to name a few.