Can my husband find out who I am voting for in the Presidential Election?"

Olivia Dreizen Howell, the founder of a website to help women get back on their feet after a breakup or divorce, tweeted last week, “We’ve been getting this question a lot,” so she followed up with some facts. As the Washington Post confirmed with experts, the answer is simple: “No; it will be public record that you voted, but not how you filled out your ballot.”

The GOP ticket is led by a sexual predator who a jury found “‘raped’ [journalist E. Jean Carroll] as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’” the judge in the case wrote. His running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has called for a national abortion ban, wrote the forward to a book that denounced contraception for making pregnancy “seem like an optional and not natural result of having sex,” and repeatedly called women who haven’t given birth “sociopathic” and “childless cat ladies.”

Meanwhile, the Democratic ticket is led by a woman who chose “Freedom” by Beyoncé as her campaign song, and has dispensed with the mealy-mouthed language about abortion rights to declare she stands for “the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body.” Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, her running mate, has decried “weird” MAGA Republicans of the “he-man woman haters’ club.”

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Many marriages are still fundamentally financial arrangements. Living together is cheaper, especially with kids. And when you own half of each other’s stuff (particularly when that stuff is real estate or retirement or cars) decoupling isn’t simple.

        • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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          3 months ago

          Getting a divorce is really cheap if you just do it yourself. If they’re capable of living together for 35 years, they should be able to manage signing a few documents together.

          • Jano@sopuli.xyz
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            3 months ago

            The literal and figurative cost of divorce has little to do with handling the paperwork.

          • Hellinabucket@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Adjusting living arrangements and insurance and other assets isn’t as easy or straight forward though. And if everything has to be intermingled why go to the time of doing the paper work.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I did estate planning with my GF because I want to make sure she’s okay if something happens to me. It cost $1000. We could have gotten the same legal protections by getting married for $150. And we’re both still paying single person tax rates.

    • ganksy@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I don’t know…if my wife voted for trump we might have impassible dispositions. I’d have to rethink some shit.

        • revelrous@sopuli.xyz
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          3 months ago

          Older women in my family—with the best of intentions, have pleaded with me to overlook abusive, violent men at home because men just can’t help the way they are and it’s a woman’s job to forget and make peace.

          These are people that fundamentally don’t think they have a right to baseline respect in their own homes by the people who supposedly loved them most. They’d need a decade’s worth of therapy just to find their best interests, and then another to act on them.

        • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          I’ve said it a couple times now, conservative women are some of the most brainwashed on the planet. They’re literally voting their rights away. It’s sad cause I wish they had all the resources they need and want but they vote against themselves constantly.

    • glimse@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Emotional/psychological/sometimes physical abuse can do that to someone. Especially after the slow, deliberate dismantling of your social circle that sociopaths like to do. Add to that the stigma of being a single mom…

    • morphballganon@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      It’s not ideal. Alas, people change, and sometimes you realize you’re stuck in situations where bailing would cause undue hardship to your kids, so you try to make it work.

  • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    My wife is going to vote for Harris/Walz. She’s told me several times. I think I’m gonna vote for them too.

    • mipadaitu@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I used to vote for the Democratic candidate.

      I still vote for the Democrats, but I used to too.

    • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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      3 months ago

      My wife wanted to sit out the election when it was Biden running over his unending support of the slaughter in Gaza, and the only thing that got her out to vote was that the were also some ballot measures which needed votes. I wrote on Cenk Uyger for the primary myself, not sure how she voted. Now we’re both super excited to vote for Harris/Walz

      Obviously we’ve got fairly similar political views

  • rand_alpha19@moist.catsweat.com
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    3 months ago

    Honestly, I love that my wife is a childless cat lady. It makes everything cheaper and easier. My life is better because I don’t have kids, and I’m happy that we made that choice together as rational adults and that we were able to agree that this is the best path for us.

    Anyone who chooses to have kids based on their values and circumstances is totally cool, whatever, as long as the kids aren’t being abused or neglected, of course. That’s your option and I respect it - someone has to have 'em.

    But if you don’t think people are capable of making the choice not to have kids and that it makes them sociopaths to not have kids, I’m pretty sure you’re just an authoritarian who either hates women or has a breeding fetish. Maybe both.

    • Icalasari@fedia.io
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      3 months ago

      Considering the sheer strain on the body pregnancy and birth have, I feel like being a mysoginist would automatically qualify one for a breeding fetish

      • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        To be fair, not having children is hard on a woman’s body as well. Increased risks for uterine, ovarian, and breast cancers to name only a few.

        Patriarchal medical providers often don’t inform childless women of this and don’t encourage additional and more regular cancer screenings.

        They just ignore women’s concerns, sometimes until it’s too late–an all too familiar story for women and the history of medicine.

    • Wrench@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Cheaper? My childless catlady wife spends a fortune on our elder cats with health problems.

      I have no problem with it, that’s what I knew I was marrying. But they certainly aren’t cheap. The vets know us like we’re regulars.

      • Sc00ter@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Still cheaper than if you had to pay for human health problems (in the USA at least)

      • Null User Object@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        Have you looked at the cost of day care? And diapers? Or just having a place to live with the extra necessary bedrooms? Pre pandemic I read some article that (as I vaguely remember) estimated it costs at least $100k to raise a child to 18 in the US. I imagine it’s closer to $150k or more by now. Probably way more.

  • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
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    3 months ago

    Last presidential election here in Brazil some churches were asking their people to swap children with other couples so that those children could keep watch to ensure everybody is voting for the right candidate (children are the only ones allowed to join you in the voting booth).

  • recklessengagement@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    As someone who’s worked multiple elections, your ballot is never tied to your name/ID. Even if someone broke into the box and stole the ballots, there’s no way to know whos is who.

    When ballots are audited/recounted, its based on things like the number of ballots vs the number of recorded voters, the signature of the precinct officer, and the qualities of the ballot itself. No identifying informationm.

    • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      This is not even remotely true for mail in ballots. They are returned in an envelope that has your name, address and signature on it.

      • andrewta@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Honest question : on mail in ballots even though you name is on the envelope, doesn’t the envelope get separated from the ballot? So there is no real way to know who voted for whom? @[email protected]

        • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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          3 months ago

          My state mail in procedure is to send your ballot in an envelope without identifying info, and that envelope goes inside a larger envelope so they can verify you. I assume they separate it for counting later

      • recklessengagement@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        True, but once they are recieved, they’re seperated from the identifying information. It’s not stored in a database somewhere.

        The only time I’d argue this isn’t the case would be for provisional ballots, where they often will send you a letter after it gets processed.

  • rayyy@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    “Mind your own business”. Of course some men, mostly Republican men, think they own their wives.

  • nkat2112@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    Imagine how it has come down to this.

    I salute the women, minorities, and all folks who have decency and do the right thing during this and all other elections. Let’s all please be sure to vote.

  • Jordan117@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Important to note that the same is not true for political donations. Idk what the cutoff is but even relatively small amounts get reported to the FEC and make their way into various searchable public databases. Just something to keep in mind if you’re in a vulnerable situation.

  • Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
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    3 months ago

    Nobody can know who you voted for in the booth unless you tell them. Just that you voted. Ballots are unsigned and you place it in the box (supervised, but folded and unexamined) yourself.

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    How is this a big question? Isn’t this common knowledge, one of the first things you learn about voting?

    • Today@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Voting is not something we do everyday or for most people even every year. Sometimes Democrat and Republican primaries are held in different rooms or at different locations, So if this is your first time or that’s all you know, it’s a real question.

      • Delta_V@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        The polling places in some rural municipalities are literally Masonic lodges where they make you announce out loud to all in attendance which primary you want to vote in.

        • revelrous@sopuli.xyz
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          3 months ago

          Wait. There are places where your primary party is not public knowledge when you vote? Fuuuck. (it’s usually a fire hall, not a lodge in my experience.)

    • BenVimes@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      I’ll fully admit to being completely ignorant about voting the first time I did it. I was politically disengaged for moody teenager reasons, but my parents forced me to go to the polling station anyway. I didn’t care to vote for any of the candidates, but was also worried that I would get in trouble if I spoiled my ballot because I hadn’t paid attention in civics (again, for moody teenager reasons).