Secret Ballots-Consensus decisions: Let's look at what these innocuous terms hide and seek improvement

They conceal the actions of elected and appointed officials from the people

Let’s look at some examples.

ONE. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell announced a “secret ballot” to choose the next Senate Majority Leader on November 13, who will succeed him very soon. He had announced his retirement from the position, but not the Senate, about six months ago.

But there was a leak, and it turned out there was a “Whipped” ballot count already. McConnell and his Whip John Thune, and likely others, already knew how everyone would vote. The previous Whip, btw, was John Cornyn. (Read about R Whips here.) McConnell had been a Whip once, himself.

Who were the 3 candidates? Senators John Thune, John Cornyn and Trump’s pick, Rick Scott. The preliminary ballot gave Thune and McConnell, and perhaps others the opportunity to horse trade to influence this election, and whip their colleagues into shape.

But maybe the leak was fake. Nonetheless, the leadership finding out how everyone plans to vote and whipping them into shape ahead of time is simply politics as usual.

So why a Secret Ballot, when at least a few Senators know how the vote will go? The idea is to keep it secret from President Trump and from We the People. This vote would reveal whether each Senator is standing with the President-elect who won by a landslide, or whether they have another agenda. Why would those with a different agenda not want Trump to know it? I want to know how my Senator votes.

Shouldn’t there be secret ballots for We the People, but shouldn’t all votes of our elected officials be public knowledge?

Addendum Nov. 13: The Gateway Pundit may have riffed off this post below, discussing the Majority leader vote in the context of We the People:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/11/kachelman-do-not-be-fooled-foundation-our-nation/

TWO. I discussed the issue of voting before regarding the WHO. While the WHO is supposed to conduct votes, there is no evidence a vote was taken on the Amendments to the international Health Regulations in 2022. When members of the European Parliament asked the WHO for the evidence, they never received it. A few months later, the husband of one of the MEPs (Francesca Donato) was murdered by garroting in his vehicle in Sicily. Weeks later, the PM of Slovakia, Robert Fico, who had announced his nation would not agree to new IHR amendments shortly before the vote, was shot several times and narrowly escaped death.

There was no vote at the WHO on the 2024 IHR Amendments either. Instead a gavel came down, claiming consensus. But there was no consensus. Immediately after the vote, nations were invited to discuss their votes, and several indicated they would be rejecting the Amendments. (Nations have 10 months from the date of publication of the final text in 6 languages to reject the amendments, which would be until approximately June of 2025.)

Similarly, at the Pact for the Future “vote” at the UN on September 22, 2024, another gavel came down and consensus was declared, despite an actual vote a few minutes earlier regarding a Russian amendment that would have watered the Pact down considerably. Russia had about 7 nations vote in favor of its amendment and 15 abstained, so there was no actual “consensus” regarding the Pact. So: it was okay to put everyone on record for Russia’s amendment, but to have a pretend vote in favor of the Pact and put no one on record.

We will either leave the WHO or stay—and hopefully if the US remains in, demand it clean up its act in a major way. I am for leaving: the WHO is considered a hotbed of corruption, nepotism and questionable competence. But we would then need to find another entity to carry out the good things that WHO does for low and middle income countries, according to David Bell.

If we decide to stay, I think a minimal demand is to get rid of the “consensus” nonsense and require real votes, where the delegates’ votes are made public and they are accountable to their governments and the public for how they voted.