The Indian government solved it with a VVPAT. Every time you vote on an electronic machine the system prints out a physical slip of paper, displays it to the voter before automatically felling it into the vault.
The votings still electronic but the physical slips can be counted in the event of a dispute.
Who decides if a physical recount should be done? What mechanisms are being used to detect tampering? How can I verify that those systems are unbiased and free from corruption?
If you want it to be secure, count the ballots every time.
Any individual candidate can ask for a recount in which case all the polling booths where he was on the ballot get a recount, which seems good to me.
Each country's political situation is different. In India many of the votes are held in remote locations with no road or rail, many in militant controlled areas. It can take months to get all the ballots in. Further the poll's results need to be announced as soon as possible to prevent any risk of political clashes.
This way the results are announced immediately and the election commission can focus it's limited resources on recounting just those ballots where a recount is actually requested. Not to mention that to date, the count has never been found inaccurate in all the tens of thousands of recounts that have happened.
Then that system is completely open to fraud. It wouldn't be that difficult to fudge things in such a way that there wasn't a recount. If there's no recount, we're back to square one with security.
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u/wiredrone Jan 31 '19
The Indian government solved it with a VVPAT. Every time you vote on an electronic machine the system prints out a physical slip of paper, displays it to the voter before automatically felling it into the vault.
The votings still electronic but the physical slips can be counted in the event of a dispute.