How do these risks compare with systems based on paper ballots?
Of course, election problems and outright election-rigging have occurred with systems based on paper ballots. However, good election administration can minimize these problems. People understand paper ballots and know what measures need to be taken to keep them secure. Wide-scale tampering with paper ballots is quite difficult. Computer-generated paper ballots can be considerably better than regular paper — barcodes and cryptography can be added to the ballot to ensure that the paper was produced at the time of the election, and to prevent ballot-box stuffing. Hence, a “better ballot box” can be produced through the combination of computers with paper. With paperless DREs, the risk of a large scale computer error or fraud that can globally affect the outcome of an election is high. With paper ballots, each voter will know that their ballot has been cast correctly, and controls can be put into place that will ensure that the tabulation is performed publicly and properly. With paperless
