Not true. Who you vote for is recorded by the Secretary of State and is for sale to political organizations and 501C-3's.
How do you think you receive targeted requests for campaign contributions? Pure luck?
I posted this elsewhere, so will only briefly repeat it here: Between 1993 and 1996(ish...) I worked for a number of political campaigns in several states. Primarily doing campaign research and voter research. I had access to voting records in several states and had the capability to derive what were known as walking lists for campaign workers.
Those walking lists told campaign workers who lived in a house, when they last voted, and HOW they last voted (Republican or Democrat.) If the campaign paid for the data , we knew how long a person was registered with a specific party and the candidates they voted for.
The entire point of the walking lists was to guide campaign workers door to door, to know which doors to knock on (those who were friendly to Republican candidates, voted in primaries, etc..) and those who voted for the other party consistently. In short, we wanted our campaign workers to target their "get out the vote" efforts on those voters who had the most likely chance of getting out during the primaries, and avoid Democrat voters to not waste time on them, or motivate them in any way to get out and vote for their candidate (during the primaries) or again during the General Election.
There is no such thing as a secret vote in this country. None.
Thanks for the correction. Is the secret ballot obsolete in all states? In WA State, which is 100% vote by mail, there is an outer envelope, which IDs the voter, and an inner envelope which is generic. The outer envelope is used by the election worker to validate the voter’s registration. I assumed the inner envelope was used to maintain the secrecy of the voter’s choices.
I’ve picked showed my ID, shown about 10 different blank ballots to pick from, poked holes in them, and shoved into a giant box full of hundreds of others. How do they track which one was me?