[wiz21c]

>>> I also agree with the people who point out that inserting electronic systems destroys that transparency (too easy to hack, too complex for general population to inspect).

Spot on. Democratic process means "owned by people". So the voting system must be able to be run in the hands of the people. Hence the necessity to have it in the form of a simple technology such as pen/paper.

Moreover, having the votes counted in some hours instead of a night doesn't make a big difference, considering the time that is needed for example, to form a government once the vote is closed.

I love computers, but it's not the right tool for this job. It's not much different than free software : the problem here is political rather than technical.

[toyg]

> having the votes counted in some hours instead of a night doesn't make a big difference, considering the time that is needed for example, to form a government

Yeah, in the US it takes 2 months to get the new President actually in the White House, no matter how quick votes are counted. They can easily spare a day or two to count everything three times over, the country will not go to the dogs in the meanwhile.

Ironically, timings are much more imperative in Europe, where electronic voting is less popular. Maybe because multi-party governments often require weeks of haggling, so a few extra hours counting votes are not particularly important.

[roywiggins]

And we didn't know the result of the 2000 election until December (when Bush v Gore was decided) so the country isn't going to descend into anarchy if counting takes an orderly couple of days.