"Somewhat" likely? Here's how normal paper ballots work: After the polls officially close, they count them up, in full view of whatever members of the public

"Somewhat" likely? Here's how normal paper ballots work: After the polls officially close, they count them up, in full view of whatever members of the public care to observe. In hotly-contested areas, this will usually include members of both/all the major political parties. This mutual distrust keeps everyone honest. Fraud is obviously not impossible, but is more difficult to get away with. Here's how electronic voting works: A private, for-profit corporation TELLS you what the numbers are, with no paper trail and using unauditable practices protected by "trade secret" (court ruling). What else do you need to know? People will scam other people for a buck, let alone control of the entire country. The burden of proof should be on the voting process to show that it's correct, not on those who challenge it; because the very lack of auditability is a virtual guarantor of fraud. It is not an accident when ATM companies produce voting machines with no receipts. In the 2004 election, exit polls tracked closely with the official counts in the paper ballot areas, but were way off the "official" totals in the electronic voting areas. E.g. http://www.nogw.com/images/exit_poll.jpg http://www.nogw.com/images/exit_poll.jpg Hackers make ZERO difference. Hack all the votes you want going in; the voting machine company is a black box, and it will produce whatever totals it wants as output. It's ESPECIALLY not going to announce if it were breached and is now completely untrustworthy; it's going to produce numbers that look plausible to save its own ass, leaving aside any nefarious reasons. Even if all their voting data was corrupted, they could just get the exit poll or pre-election survey numbers and tweak by a few percent in the desired direction in a few key areas and voila. How many people need to be in on this? One guy with root access.