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Comment by hnaccy | Hacker News Reader

I find the use of paperless voting machines extremely suspect. In the best case supporters of paperless are naive or have had their palms greased by the machines' suppliers. In the worst case they're actively being used to tamper with election results.

The longer officials hem and haw over replacing them the more I fear the worst.

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I want a paper trail and an id. I don't see why we cannot have both as each camp has reasons for it piece of the puzzle. proof of residence is just as important as the paper trail.

but what good is a paper trail that does not include a code that can be scanned to verify it was actually accounted for?

> what good is a paper trail that does not include (feature)

A hand-recount then becomes possible.

It might be possible to have a system that allows you to prove that your vote was counted, but if you want to prove it was counted correctly, then you open the door to vote buying and coercion.

Edit: It seems that technologies now exist to fix this problem. Link below courtesy of tzs.

> but if you want to prove it was counted correctly, then you open the door to vote buying and coercion.

How so?

If you can prove that you voted for who you voted for, you can sell your vote to a third party. They can ensure that you're not betraying them.

This is why taking a photo of your vote is forbidden in some places. So the third party cannot ask for photographic proof of compliance.

That's not quite correct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantegrity

Thanks for the link. I hope that catches on in more places.

I don't think that helps with the vote buying implications though does it? Not that I really think vote buying would be such a problem.

A paper trail doesn’t disinfranchise anyone. It’s an important detail.

> Proof of residence

Does the US actually issue real proof of residence to its citizens? Or do you use the ridiculous "utility bill authentication" system of the UK?

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