By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou
The power of the vote for human societies is great and expresses the state of the democracy of each nation, by which leaders emerge.
Certainly the vote is an expression of the ideologies, expectations and visions of each person, but at the same time it is also an expression of resistance and dissatisfaction. Thus, the vote within it has both positive and negative elements and always depends on the mentality of the voter. While it is a vote expressed by crossing out or on a white ballot, it hides the personal story of each voter. What would we hear if it was possible to make a "psychobiography of the voter"! Of course, some modern scholarly analysts have the conditions and ways to detect these ins and outs of voters, but this cannot be done with precision.
Beyond that, the vote in various regimes and groups of people is given in many ways, namely by voice, by show of hands, by roll call and by secret ballot. Each type of voting depends on the time and place, on the prevailing mentalities and situations. In all these cases, it should be exercised with personal freedom, that is, the voter should be active as a person, which means, among other things, to have the possibility of free choice and expression.
However, the first types of voting, namely by voice, show of hands and roll-call voting, may be interpreted as an expression of courage and democratic sensitivity and conscience, but they may also express pressure, coercion and fear. On the contrary, the secret ballot preserves more elements of freedom, but without being freed from the feeling of fear. The positives are more than the negatives. Secret voting preserves the personal elements of freedom, of liberation from various dependencies, of the avoidance of the formation of particular groups and schisms.
This is done in political and social matters, since proposals are accepted or not by votes of all kinds and depends on the sensitivity of the various leaders and the way in which they perceive the exercise of power.
Source: Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
