@mattblaze

Doing an election canvas at scale does require expertise, and machine counts, but some hand counting of a subset of the ballots (to validate the machine count) should be a part of every election. And selecting people at random for that low-skill task wouldn't be a bad thing. It would create a group of ordinary citizens who've seen with their own eyes that the count was fair, which could help counter the anti-democracy propaganda.

@mattblaze

"Stupid" is a bit harsh.

Obviously we can't lock all American voters into a room while we count their votes, and that's not the lesson I suggest drawing from the Schneier piece.

Paper ballots are a Good Thing, because they can be recounted by hand. That could be part of a minimal standard for fair elections.

@mattblaze

The papal election is surprisingly secure, and I imagine we could take some lessons from it.

For example, the people who count the votes are selected at random, so it's almost impossible to bribe the vote counters.

https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2013/02/how_secure_is_the_pa.html