For over 2000 years, the best practice in elections has allowed individuals to cast anonymous votes at polling booths observable by the public and monitored by election officials.

Despite partisan bickering back-and-forth, that best practice has not changed.

In Western civilization, the casting of ballots to decide who holds public office was pioneered in ancient Athens. Tradition gives credit to the Greek statesman Cleisthenes in 508 B.C.

Cleisthenes had a challenge: some of the most self-serving and corrupt figures in Athens had their own “enforcers,” thugs and henchmen who would bully and threaten. A free and fair election required that individuals be able to cast their votes unintimidated and without coercion.

So Cleisthenes moved the dropping of a clay tile, with a name engraved on it, to a table placed centrally in the Agora, a plaza in the heart of Athens. No goon or enforcer could stand near the table.

This was important to the individual voter because only they knew the name on the actual tile dropped. If coercion had occurred, the voter had plausible deniability, and no one could prove otherwise.

But it was also important for the Athenian community. They watched as their friends and neighbors opened their hands to drop a tile of their own free will, with no compulsion or threat standing next to them.

In America, we have learned from the many voting systems developed over the years since Athens. None of them have improved on Cleisthenes’ original method to limit coercion: anonymous ballots cast in a public forum.

America, however, added an important new element: universal but voluntary participation.

In ancient Greece, voting was a duty of only the male upper class. In fact, in Athens any election boycotted by a majority of the city’s eligible voters (then calculated to be at least 6000 men) was null and void.

This meant a very unpopular strongman in Athens could still intimidate and push fellow citizens into an “unscheduled vacation to Corinth,” thereby avoiding an embarrassing election defeat.

To a lesser extent, American businesses have tried similar tactics. Management and senior executives might get time during the day to go and vote, while hourly employees would be penalized unless they worked their entire shift, often ending only minutes before polls closed.

Warmongering politicians can count on the votes of many whose lives and loved ones are never at risk. But overseas military personnel are rarely free to “return home to cast their votes.”

To remedy such unfairness, state election officials have generally supported alternative voting options “for cause.” If work, a planned vacation, military duty, long-term illness, or disability prevent a person from reaching the polls on Election Day, the options of requesting a mail-in ballot or voting early further assure a free and fair election.

It should surprise no one that the 2020 election, heavily impacted by COVID-19 irregularities, will likely go down in history as the election least trusted by American citizens. It also holds the record as the election in which fewer citizens observed their friends and neighbors casting voluntary anonymous votes in public locations.

Idaho’s system has public voting locations open from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm, on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Idaho also offers a ballot-by-mail request or early vote option for those unable to get to the polls on Election Day.

In today’s polarized politics, some politicians are demanding 100% in-person voting. Others are pushing universal ballot-by-mail. Both extremes are wrong.

Idaho’s current system works well, reduces fraud or coercion, and enhances public trust.

It is based on the lessons learned and the best practices developed over 2000 years. Be skeptical of any proposal that treats such hard-earned wisdom with disdain.