[DBrow]

Sounds like it is easier to swap a carton of paper ballots than it is to have a geek pick a lock, swap a card, override the encryption by knowing what sector to change and what to change it to (keeping the CRC, tally, and parity check the same for each machine) and leave the system with no sign of tampering. This would have to be done to a number of machines and coordinated at a high level.

The article deliberately makes it seem easy to do in theory.

As for problems, sure, as long as the wrong party wins there will be howls of protest and people marching in the street burning things and lawyers plotting per diem rates. Good thing Mexico avoided that by using paper ballots! Or ask the runner-up in the Washington governor's race about paper ballots, or perhaps look at the Milwaukee primary results.

[steve-b]

The bottom line is that electronic voting is easy to subvert -- one crack into the system allows you to change as many votes as you like, unlike paper ballots where faking a thousand votes is a thousand times as much work (and a thousand times as much risk of getting caught) as faking one vote.

It's time to forget it and use straightforward paper ballots. Getting results an hour after the polls close is a luxury; trustworthy elections are a necessity.