| > While the paper I handled is stored in the machine, I am sure that the results are transmitted to the next link in the chain through some computer system. How can you be sure about that? > With so many links in the chain, it's my opinion that it's unreasonable to expect them all to be processed by people. It won't scale and I'm not convinced that it's that much safer anyway. The point is that if you are not convinced, you can go and observe the process. The point is to remove as much trust as possible. The point is not to just have some human in the loop, but to make sure that people who distrust each other can personally make sure that the correct procedure is being followed. > It would be my preference that the pieces of the system that perform this processing are backed with open source software. The problem is that you have no way to verify that what is actually processing your vote is the open source software that you hope it is. See also Ken Thompson's classic "reflections on trusting trust": https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thomp... > At the very least, if there is a case where tampering is suspected, officials of the court can compare the software on the machine with the software in the repository. No, they can't. The only way to check what software is running on the computer is to use software that is running on the computer, which is thus also suspect. That is, short of decapping each and every chip in the one computer that you are trying to check and extracting all the circuitry and all storage bits in it. > As painful as it is, I think we all need to trust the state, to some degree, to do the jobs that are the responsibility of the state. But ensuring trustworthiness of elections is not one of those. Elections are the anchor that all the other trust that we put into democratically elected governments is anchored at, it's the one lever that we have to remove governments that turn out to not be trustworthy. You cannot trust the government to remove itself in case you want to have it replaced. > Once the votes have been tallied for a district, isn't it possible to tamper with them as they are transmitted up the chain to the next link in the processing? If the election is run properly: No. Represenatives from each party will be observing the election process at every polling station, and the general public can usually also observe if they wish to, from opening until the votes are counted. Also, election results should generally be published broken down by polling station, so each of the observers can check that what they observed at their polling station actually matched what went into the total. There is absolutely no place for trust in elections. |