After you cast your vote for president, can other people check who you voted for online?
That’s the question that sparked a thread on X with more than 8 million views in which 39-year-old Olivia Howell told her followers that no, their husbands cannot find out who they voted for.
“I’ve been voting since I was 18, but I actually wasn’t sure about that until yesterday,” said Howell, who started a company called Fresh Starts Registry that makes tools and resources for people getting divorced.
As tech companies and political campaigns use our online behavior to infer our political views and target us with ads, our choices in the polling booth can feel increasingly un-private. But votes in local, state or national elections are secret, with no official way to search for how someone voted.
Registering to vote requires sharing some potentially sensitive information, such as your physical address. A March investigation by Politico found that bad actors sometimes dox or harass voters after finding their addresses in voting databases. Data from Pew Research in 2016 showed 11 percent of unregistered voters cited privacy or security concerns among their reasons for not voting.
For people in controlling relationships, the voting process — at a polling location or at home by mail — can be even more fraught, domestic violence experts say. Just as domestic violence ticks up during economic downturns, polarizing elections can amplify safety issues for people living with abusive partners or families, according to Lyndsey Dearlove, director of operations at domestic violence organization No More.
“When you become a household that supports X or a household that supports Y, unless you’ve got really good, healthy relationships with your partner where you can disagree and still get along, it’s often a point of great friction,” Dearlove said.
Wondering about privacy when you vote? Here’s what to know.