Briefly, according to Wikipedia and other sources, open voting has been used for thousands of years, via voice vote, counting raised hands or counting the heads of persons standing, roll-call votes, and so on.
In Texas, Election Code §122.001(a)(1) mandates that "A voting system may not be used in an election unless the system preserves the secrecy of the ballot." The primary reasons for a secret ballot are to protect the voter against coercion, intimidation, blackmail, and the like, and also the temptation to sell one's vote.
Once a ballot is cast privately, all connection to the voter is broken: when the urn is dumped out and there is a black ball among the balls, no one knows who cast the "No" vote.
In most modern voting systems, once the voter has been checked in, all connection to the voter is broken, and there is no personally-identifiable information on the ballot.
Texas Election Code 122.001(a) mandates that: "A voting system may not be used in an election unless the system: is capable of providing records from which the operation of the voting system may be audited." Every CPA or financial officer knows what is necessary for a complete and verifiable audit-physical security, inventory, chain of custody, separation of duties, a complete audit trail, and so on.
Then the register of voters at precinct 7 for that day would only have one voter from precinct 29 checked in, and the precinct number on the ballot that day would unavoidably identify the voter.
So where does that leave us? It boils down to this: All election data needed for a complete audit must be public and transparent, but other than that, the county should protect voter privacy and ballot secrecy to the greatest extent possible, except when the voter voluntarily divulges their vote.
https://joehoft.com/dr-walter-c-daugherity-balancing-ballot-secrecy-versus-transparency/
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