Comment by daveguy
6 hours ago
You know what's easy to understand? Hand marked paper ballots cast anonymously with multiple witnesses to simple optomechanical counting using open hardware and software. The crypto based security can be used to ensure that only a valid ballot enters the vote You have to combine the crypto with a paper trail. Otherwise it can be manipulated by mitm or a bad actor with the keys. Blockchain has more than enough attack vectors.
And so many special rules. Observers are constantly thrown out or denied rights, because even the local officials running the show don't know the rules. Because, in the end, it is not that simple. Berlin right now has an issue that they forgot to specify which of multiple valid method are used to calculate the excess mandates.
It is never as simple as just some paper ballots. But we have a bigger problem. It's a problem at scale. We have all those issues because we do not have enough experts to run all the voting locations at once. The observers need to understand the rules and their rights. The official needs to do so, too. The work of an expert is not scalable, because he cannot be at all places at once.
However, an expert who audits the software is very scalable. One expert can find issues everywhere.
> because even the local officials running the show don't know the rules.
Or because they do.