That's not even the top problem with electronic voting in my book. Counting is.
If there's one central machine crunching all the raw data, you can bet your ass that every APT out there is going to be looking at the possibility of completely changing the outcome of the elections.
The way this problem is tackled with ballots is rather simple: way too many people to bribe to change the outcome.
> The way this problem is tackled with ballots is rather simple: way too many people to bribe to change the outcome
I think we do this correctly in New York City, where I am an election worker from time to time.
Voters mark a paper ballot that is electronically counted. Every counting machine continuously shows two numbers: the number of ballots it has ever received, and the number it has received in that day's election. Multiple people at each poll site sign off on these numbers at the start and end of each day. Lots of people, from parties, interested groups, et cetera, personally verify these numbers throughout the day. (We call these people "observers." Anyone can be one.)
At the end of the day, the poll numbers are printed directly from each machine and posted for observation. They are also transmitted, electronically, to HQ. Poll observers like to observe and independently record these numbers.
Finally, the NYPD carts away the paper ballots for archiving.
To corrupt this system, you'd have to overwhelm a majority of the poll workers, poll observers, and NYPD officers transmitting the paper ballots at every precinct in your jurisdiction. That's hard.
(The system isn't perfect. The sign offs we're supposed to do at day's end are done at the beginning, because people want to get out early. This weakens, but does not break, the chain of trust and custody I described above. TL; DR If you care about this, please sign up as a poll worker.)
TIL, sounds like a good system. Voting is not only selecting a leader or measure, but it also needs to be validated so that the people believe that the citizenry collectively made the decision. Observers, audit trails, multi-party sign off, etc make the electron results more believable.
If a single server can be wiped, on the other hand, there's no point in holding the election at all -- there's just too much room to quibble over the result.
Isn't this solved by transparency? Each precinct publicly reports their results, then news agencies and data junkies independently verify totals. Combine with a paper trail and random audit on a statistically significant set of precincts.
If there's one central machine crunching all the raw data, you can bet your ass that every APT out there is going to be looking at the possibility of completely changing the outcome of the elections.
The way this problem is tackled with ballots is rather simple: way too many people to bribe to change the outcome.