>> You imagine that in between there are competent and honest people counting the votes They don't have to be honest at all: you simply allow each competing po

>> You imagine that in between there are competent and honest people counting the votes They don't have to be honest at all: you simply allow each competing political party to designate their own people to count the votes, so they keep close eye on each other. Of course you also allow people not affiliated with any party, independent international NGOs, etc. The main advantage of paper votes isn't that they are completely unhackable, but that the hacks do not scale - you would need thousands of co-conspriators to influence something like US presidential elections.