> A counting room full of people counting paper ballots is a machine, and it's a transparent machine where everyone inside it and outside of it can understand how it works, and trust that it's working properly.
I agree with this 100%
Electronic voting must be cryptographically secure, and increase trust and security. I think this should be the first rule.
Those two goals are mutually exclusive.
Everyone understands how a room full of people counting paper ballots works, without having to explain it. Everyone understands that the process is transparent, and that by having people of different political persuasions working together, you ensure that the result is fair.
There is also immense value in having the voting "machine" being made up of actual humans, so that everyone in society can take part if they want to, and feel like they're doing their part to defend democracy.
And none of that can be replicated in software. You and I might be able to understand and trust the software, but everyone? Not gonna happen.
I think most people know their passwords are encrypted, but they don't know about hashes at all, they just assume the domain experts have figured it out.
Security in e-voting would probably look similar. You would know there are smart people somewhere who understand the complexity, and ideally you would have ample opportunity to learn.
I find it hard to imagine a plausible scenario where a complex, blockchain-driven election model is met with trust and comfort by a broad cross section of voters. It practically begs for anti-science paranoia.
And there are people that don't have a lot of trust in our current voting methods. Can't stop conspiracy theorists really. I think with global warming there is a degree of uncertainty due to the varying environmental factors. This will be something where you can pretty simply explain what's going on, or at least say this part is encrypted with X algorithm and people are happy. The public is willing to trust encryption, specifically there have been cases where the government's efforts were thwarted by strong encryption.
Is that rhetorical? I can't think of any major bug on a billion dollar ETH contract. The largest "heists" appear to have ranged in the mid 10's M$ (DAO, Parity), with one bug that freezed a sum in the low 100s M$.