Counts votes like money

Here's an interesting piece, again recommended by Donna, on electronic voting that suggests we should count votes like banks count money.

"Specifically, at the time you vote you are given a private, take-home receipt that preserves your secret ballot. After the election, you can check your receipt against the election results to make sure your vote was counted properly -- just like you reconcile your ATM receipts against your monthly bank statement. At the same time, any independent organization can audit all the votes to make sure the final count is right."

Sounds superficially attractive but with the bank statement you check all your own transactions. The election result is not a statement of all voting transactions and does not give you the opportunity to check either that your vote was counted or see how others voted, not that anyone should be able to do the latter. As to the independent organization auditing the process, as Rebecca Mecuri, David Dill, Avi Rubin and lots more who really understand the process and the technology say, the devil is in the detail. The appropriate analogy here would be a bank which allowed you and everyone else to make one transation each month; they then provide you with a statement at the end of the month that said that the overall pot of money that you all draw on (or pay into) has gone up or down by a specific amount. Trust them. They have your interest at heart. And it can all be audited by an independent company (probably employed by the bank).