1. There are over 100,000 polling places in the US. You would probably need to affect at least 1000 of them to have a noticeable impact. It's true that only a f

1. There are over 100,000 polling places in the US. You would probably need to affect at least 1000 of them to have a noticeable impact. It's true that only a few polling places could decide an election, but you can't know this in advance. It would be absurd to hack a few "in case we need it". That's a massive risk for probably no gain. Individual polling place results are always reported, so just modifying the total count would not work. 2. This is a good point, but again, look at Florida. It was very seriously considered, and is still seriously considered by some people, that real widespread vote fraud occurred. It's an interesting effect though, and I agree that widespread subtle adjustments might not be caught by looking at polls. 3. Yes, all of this would be much easier if voting was totally electronic. In the US, the vast majority of voting is done with paper ballots that are read by a machine. I think at least 3/4 of votes use paper ballot. 4. Yes, I agree, you wouldn't need to hack the whole country. But on the other hand, battleground counties are also ones the media and the public is paying the most attention to. I don't think your example is realistic. I find it very difficult to believe that nobody would notice the individual district counts don't add up to the total count in a county. Or maybe that's not quite what you meant, but regardless, the system is not that automated. There are people at every stage of the process who would need to notice that what they're reporting is not what's going through.