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Paper ballots have this wonderful property where basically any voter can reasonably understand what is going on and even be a precinct observer and be reasonabl

Paper ballots have this wonderful property where basically any voter can reasonably understand what is going on and even be a precinct observer and be reasonably sure relying on first hand evidence that the election was fair. No other system has this property. Even if you had a formally verified election system, it and the proofs of it could perhaps only be understood by less than 100 people in the world.

tlb 7y ago
Yes, I think that's critical. Anyone can understand the security of paper ballots. And if there is fraud, people can understand that too. There have been incidents of ballot boxes hidden, and when it came to light the public could understand what happened and what a reasonable remedy would be. But if there's a hack of an e-voting system, how's a normal person supposed to understand it? The system has to be comprehensible to voters.
kosievdmerwe 7y ago
The other benefit is that a widespread attack, which you need to swing results, has to involve lots of people. Pretty much guaranteeing a leak.
s9w 7y ago
But the fraud in paper voting happens at another place - often when the results are transmitted to a centralized place.
- IAmEveryone 7y ago
  Here in Germany, you’re allowed to stick around and watch the counting up close. I’ve done so, and was able to count along the votes for the two major parties. Six hours later, I checked the spreadsheet on the official website, scrolled to the row for my polling location, and verified these two numbers were identical to my count. Sure, I can only check 1/3rd or so in one of 50,000 polling places. But get just 20 people you trust to do the same, and it becomes statistically unlikely that there is widespread fraud. You can hang out in the polling location for the whole day if you want. If you get there before any voters, you can also check that the ballot box is empty. Each location serves less than 1,000 voters with three volunteer workers, so you’ll always be able to know everything that’s going on. Oh, and the longest wait I’ve ever had to endure myself was less than 5 minutes The only possible problem (aside from Republicans) in the US would be the large number of individual races and ballot initiatives. It works well with five or so. But if you’re voting for ten deputy dog-catchers of the peace, it might get tricky.
  - s9w 7y ago
    Good that you did that! But for most locations that is not done. See the last NRW elections where it was later discovered that votes of the voldemord party have been zeroed in many locations. Or the endless stories of tampered mail votes. I'm not against paper voting at all, just saying that they aren't automatic tamper proof.
    - IAmEveryone 7y ago
      There are exactly zero stories of tampered mail-in ballots. Which, I guess, does make them “endless”.
- detaro 7y ago
  That's why the public observability is so important. Hard to transmit the wrong result if multiple people representing different interest were there and saw the actual result.

tlb 7y ago

Yes, I think that's critical. Anyone can understand the security of paper ballots. And if there is fraud, people can understand that too. There have been incidents of ballot boxes hidden, and when it came to light the public could understand what happened and what a reasonable remedy would be. But if there's a hack of an e-voting system, how's a normal person supposed to understand it? The system has to be comprehensible to voters.

kosievdmerwe 7y ago

The other benefit is that a widespread attack, which you need to swing results, has to involve lots of people. Pretty much guaranteeing a leak.

s9w 7y ago

But the fraud in paper voting happens at another place - often when the results are transmitted to a centralized place.

IAmEveryone 7y ago
Here in Germany, you’re allowed to stick around and watch the counting up close. I’ve done so, and was able to count along the votes for the two major parties. Six hours later, I checked the spreadsheet on the official website, scrolled to the row for my polling location, and verified these two numbers were identical to my count. Sure, I can only check 1/3rd or so in one of 50,000 polling places. But get just 20 people you trust to do the same, and it becomes statistically unlikely that there is widespread fraud. You can hang out in the polling location for the whole day if you want. If you get there before any voters, you can also check that the ballot box is empty. Each location serves less than 1,000 voters with three volunteer workers, so you’ll always be able to know everything that’s going on. Oh, and the longest wait I’ve ever had to endure myself was less than 5 minutes The only possible problem (aside from Republicans) in the US would be the large number of individual races and ballot initiatives. It works well with five or so. But if you’re voting for ten deputy dog-catchers of the peace, it might get tricky.
- s9w 7y ago
  Good that you did that! But for most locations that is not done. See the last NRW elections where it was later discovered that votes of the voldemord party have been zeroed in many locations. Or the endless stories of tampered mail votes. I'm not against paper voting at all, just saying that they aren't automatic tamper proof.
  - IAmEveryone 7y ago
    There are exactly zero stories of tampered mail-in ballots. Which, I guess, does make them “endless”.
detaro 7y ago
That's why the public observability is so important. Hard to transmit the wrong result if multiple people representing different interest were there and saw the actual result.