Final answer:
Voting by secret ballot ensures voter privacy, reduces pressure and potential coercion, and upholds the electoral process's integrity.
Step-by-step explanation:
Voting by secret ballot is essential for maintaining the privacy and safety of voters, ensuring the integrity of the electoral process, and promoting political democratization. Initially, American elections involved public vote choices that were susceptible to external pressures and lacked privacy.
By adopting the Australian ballot, voters gained anonymity, thereby reducing conformity pressure, avoiding coercion, and encouraging independent voting. Political parties have different preferences in ballot design: the office-block ballot promotes split-ticket voting, while the party-column ballot encourages straight-ticket voting.
Nonetheless, the secret ballot's primary purpose remains to protect the voter's right to a free and unpressured choice.