Still, Mill’s lesser-evil type of justification for open votes has been rejected in the past on at least three grounds. First, one could question the very purpose that Mill ascribes to voting. Hence, some of the protagonists of the 19th century British debate criticized the view according to which voting should be regarded as a trust rather than a right.[31] In contrast with Mill’s view, this entails that ballot secrecy is not even a lesser evil. It is no evil at all. Second, one may disagree with Mill at the factual level rather than at the normative one. James Mill, his father, clearly agreed with his son on the purpose of voting, referring explicitly on various occasions to the idea of a trust. In his long essay “On the Ballot”, he states that “The voter for a member of Parliament has a trust placed in his hands, on the discharge of which the highest interests of his country depend”.[32] However, James Mill considered—in opposition to his son’s view—that the negative consequences attached to the secret ballot were not only less weighty than its advantages, but devoid of any weight at all.[33] This entails that for James Mill as well, secret voting was not even a lesser evil reform. It did not involve any evil at all. Third, let us consider Bentham’s position. Although he does not refer explicitly to the trust-based view of voting, he considers that voters should be influenced by tutelary motives. For him,