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Regarding electronic voting there is an security technique "Blinded Certificates" which works similar to RSA, but lets you do some pretty cool things regarding elections.

Here's how it works:
1) I make out my ballot in a standard format.
2) I blind the it.
3) I give it to authority A and identify myself
4) He checks that I've voted only once and signs it.
5) I unblind it.
6) I turn it in annoymously to authority B via drop-box or onion routing.
7) Authority B knows A has certified this ballot.
8) The unblinded ballots can be published in the paper on or on the web.
ANYONE CAN RECOUNT THEM.
NOBODY KNOWS WHO VOTED WHAT

We have the technology to do this. The main problem is that people have to use thier own trusted computer to ensure security isn't broken, since anyone can create a device that looks like it's letting you vote and then does something else.

I know Germany and Canada just use plain simple check off ballots, and count the things quicker then we do. Many people who were at first excited about electronic voting say we should just get back to the basics.

Thanks for the reply. I'm still not sold. Having been a systems software programmer in another lifetime, I firmly believe in paper ballots! I worked for Sony for awhile, debugging the stuff the programmers accidently did with the code. Sometimes a problem couldn't be tracked through the dumps. Very frustrating. Anyone can take advantage of this.

Think of it this way: when the Soviet Union collapsed, lots of brilliant scientists were out of work...now in the U.S., same thing is happening in tech. How easy would it be to hire the best and brightest and hungriest to do some fancy coding? And if you were the head of the Dixie mafia, just think how easy it would be to make sure that programmer never talks! This could be a terrific novel, doncha think?