We have a right to BOTH. Some election officials have been conflating these two issues, claiming that if we examine ballots we can see how people voted. Now, this raises a stunning question: If this is so, that means that election officials and vendors can also figure out how you voted.
We all need to grab a cleaver and chop these two rights into the two distinct rights that they are. The right to inspect; the right to privacy.
AS FOLLOWS:
RIGHT TO INSPECT - The public, in exercising its right to self govern, and under principles of Freedom of Information, has a right to examine the original evidence (the ballots) to authenticate reported results in elections.
But Washington State has denied 21 separate requests from citizens to inspect the ballots; the state of New Hampshire secretly excluded ballots from its Right to Know law in 2003; and Colorado election officials fought all the way to the state supreme court trying to hide ballots from the public (they lost; the court affirmed citizen right to inspect ballots).
Ballots are anonymous. Or at least, that's the way it's supposed to be.
