A Reform We Fought Hard to WinIt's worth remembering that secrecy at the ballot box isn't how America started. Borrowing an idea pioneered in Australia in the 1850s, states began adopting the “Australian ballot” – a uniform, government-printed ballot marked in a private booth, with no way for anyone else to know your choice. Mail-In Voting Undoes That WorkNow ask yourself honestly: when a ballot arrives at a kitchen table, who's standing there? It was a deliberate wall built between a voter's conscience and every form of pressure the outside world could bring to bear on it. We didn't win the secret ballot by accident.