Comment Re:meaningless and worthless (Score 1) 1023
> Without a paper trail, a completely fake vote tally would look just like the real thing.
Not necessarily. There exist cryptographic voting protocols that ensure that any change to recorded votes would be detectable, and that permit voters to securely verify that their vote was properly tallied, without revealing that vote. Read the chapter on secure voting protocols in Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" for more details.
However, even were the electronic voting manufacturers using those techniques (they're not), it's still the case that validating the implementation of such protocols, and ensuring that the validated implementation is actually in use at all the polling places, could be a significant problem. Still, a competent audit would reveal that sort of problem. The current crop of electronic vote machines is a joke, since there is basically no way to audit their results.
"Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss..."
Not necessarily. There exist cryptographic voting protocols that ensure that any change to recorded votes would be detectable, and that permit voters to securely verify that their vote was properly tallied, without revealing that vote. Read the chapter on secure voting protocols in Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" for more details.
However, even were the electronic voting manufacturers using those techniques (they're not), it's still the case that validating the implementation of such protocols, and ensuring that the validated implementation is actually in use at all the polling places, could be a significant problem. Still, a competent audit would reveal that sort of problem. The current crop of electronic vote machines is a joke, since there is basically no way to audit their results.
"Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss..."
