Bill Stewart wrote:
That's nice and trustable. Neither George Bush nor Al Gore has the time to watch 100,000,000 ballots counted, though one could argue that we'd be better off if they couldn't take office until they'd sat down together and done it, or until one of them had conceded that the other was more patient :-)
come on - he's not referring to the president candidates. for your crazy double-indirect voting system, these would be the "electorates" or whatever they're officially called.
The difficult problems are making sure that the ballot box wasn't stuffed, and that the people who voted all existed and were unique, and that their votes weren't obtained through bribery (though deception is fine :-) Here in the US, it's traditional that ballot boxes (where they're used) are sealed at the polling place and ostensibly only opened with witnesses, but fraud is nonetheless possible and perhaps still practiced on a small scale.
but it is lots easier to detect fraud if you have a physical bill than detecting fraud on some electronic "push this button to vote" machine. or whatever other crazy stuff you're using. I heard you had more than a dozen completely different voting systems, from hole-pushing to touchscreens.