For no reason at all, did you know that cryptographers have been working on public votes with private ballots for a while? If one were so inclined one could hold a nonbinding (public, filmed) election using existing ballot methods, then immediately after hold another nonbinding (also public, also filmed) election using a cryptographicly enforced method where the results were tallied so that nobody's vote was exposed, but every vote was counted accurately. If OP is right then the two tallies will be the same and everyone's fears were misguided, business could carry on knowing everything was above board, and the big tent party is speaking with one voice.

Of course going through with this would destroy the ability to cut nonpartisan backroom deals because politicians couldn't negotiate behind the scenes to trade something now for a vote in their constituents' favor later. It's not something to consider lightly, but we shouldn't have to pretend that there are no solutions to the problems.

By the way, one of the contributors to that particular system is Lawrence Lessig which you might remember from his pivot away from tech and copyright law to corruption in politics.

It seems to me like the 2026 US midterm results were at least a little due to a loss in confidence in the process itself. The Senate appears to be moving to take care of business (if we're reading articles about Schumer possibly replaced by Van Vollen then something is happening), and there is clearly an apetite in the House to get out from under something that nobody seems willing to discuss.