Critics of the Cuban Revolution contend that election results are predetermined in advance by the Communist Party establishment. They claim, for example, that since the nomination of candidates for the Municipal Assembly is an open and public process, people will be intimidated by various implied threats to select a candidate favorable to the "regime." The secret ballot, however, acts as a check on these kinds of abuse. If this sort of intimidation where to take place, voters have the right to reject any or all candidates on a secret ballot. This would be a monumental setback for anyone contemplating such an abuse of power. So, it is in everyone's interest to put forward only the most qualified and deserving candidates for public office. Note that even in the former Soviet Union, without even the benefit of a secret ballot, the Editors of Time-Life Books report:
[Soviet] voters are not sheep and occasionally refuse to react as expected. If an incompetent party secretary nominates someone who is widely disliked, there may be so many "no" votes that the candidate is defeated. Then a new candidate and a new election (and generally a new party secretary) are called for.
Alternatively, the critic may claim that even if a candidate is rejected, a "carbon copy" of that candidate will be put forward for the next round. By this they mean that another socialist will replace him or her--a bad thing as far as the critic is concerned. Now, socialism--the democratization of all political and economic institutions--is quite legitimately enshrined in the Cuban Constitution. It was ratified in a 1975 referendum by 96% of eligible voters and, implicitly, in two national elections in 1993 and 1998 by similar overwhelming majorities. Refusing to accept this, the critic seems to view Cubans as too stupid or cowardly to vote in their own best interests--to do the "right thing."
It should not be surprising then that such critics' uncritically support the Helms-Burton Act that calls for an end to socialism in Cuba, regardless of what the Cuban people may want. The Helms-Burton Act, Section 206, paragraph 3, specifies that one of the conditions for lifting the embargo is significant progress toward a "market-oriented economy" with real power reverting back to private (mainly US) corporations--as in the rest of Latin America. It also specifies that most property and economic assets (those nationalized by the the Cuban people) be effectively turned over to what are now US citizens and corporations. Section 205 also specifies that under no circumstances will the US government allow the election of Fidel or Raul Castro to any public office. The Cuban voter, it seems, is not be be trusted to do the "right thing."
Even from Cuban dissident sources themselves, we have from an article arguing that the protest vote should not be counted in the voter-turnout (???), one dissident wrote (April 2000):
[A] method favored by some dissidents is to vote with blanks or to void their ballots as they vote. That choice is the way they express their rejection of a system...
On a massive campaign to get Cubans to register a protest vote in the 1998 national elections, Arnold August (p. 359-60) writes:
During the [1998] elections themselves, the U.S., through its Radio Marti, broadcast hours of appeals calling on the people to boycott the urns [ballot boxes] or to deposit blank or spoiled ballots. . . . Every indication was that the U.S. had indeed been expecting a big breakthrough in the protest vote.
More recently (AP, January 2003), prominent Cuban dissident, Marta Beatriz Roque, speaking on behalf of yet another "umbrella group" called on fellow dissidents to monitor the vote and said that "opponents [of the Revolution] could also protest the elections in one of three ways: by not voting, by annulling their ballot, or by depositing the ballot blank."
While these opponents of the Revolution, both on and off the island, may be frustrated with the Cuban electoral system, even they seem to see the protest vote (a blank or spoiled ballot) as a legitimate avenue of protest.