Indeed, a record of proof of the transaction instills more confidence in the system (i.e. votes aren't just in this "black box") and provides a redundancy in the case of issues with the electronic system.
If you vote from home, what sort of receipt do you get? A digital receipt for every candidate can't be recorded unless it's mailed in (and if people are all mailing in anyway then it sounds like you're just overcomplicating things), and people keeping a record of their vote at home where they can show others will let people systemically validate blackmail - "show me you voted <candidate> or I'll break your kneecaps". Although to be fair, if you seize someone's mail-in ballot you could force them to write it out under supervision.
Other than possible cost savings, the only useful benefit of electronic voting is if it lets people vote from home/vote more conveniently. Requiring a paper backup nullifies that benefit, and making it optional damages the usefulness of having a paper backup in the first place and adds privacy problems.
In WA the ballot has a tab you peel off and can track through a webpage. It’s basically the system outlined above but we actually fill out a paper ballot then mail it in. The postage is prepaid.
This solves basically all problems and works great.
If elections in my district are historically won by a 10-20% margin, and my corporation directly employs 20% of the people in the district, then I think I could make blackmail scale just fine.
I’m not sure I follow. Are you threatening people’s jobs? Do you think you can reliably get away with that? This is the part where it doesn’t scale. You’re taking on an enormous risk to maybe swing a tight election by committing widespread extortion. It’s totally unrealistic and has nothing to do with voting in person, online or by mail. Your threat would apply to all of them.
> Do you think you can reliably get away with that?
Robber barons did reliably get away with it throughout the nineteenth century. That's the whole reason that you don't get to take a copy of your ballot home today.
