I am a software engineer but only one person my idea would need more people to implement and get a prototype made.
Humans can't be trusted to do the right thing. Humans say moot or no standing. Humans print extra ballots. Humans block other humans from observing. Humans abuse SOFTWARE that was made by other humans to be exploited.
Machines do as they are programmed to do. Restrict functions and access at all possible points and pair with other forms of checks and validation then you have something that is almost unfraudable.
My idea "self checkout" and self auditing.
Make all ballots cast public. Let people see their ballot online and verify it is in its original state. Open source.
Places that are red states will need these machines to stay red.
Places that are traditionally red but inexplicably went blue need these machines.
This is how we continue to have rights when no else will stand up for us.
We know the voting machines are the problem, so what are we waiting for? Let's get rid of those and put in our own.
I don't think it will cost that much to make. Really need simple hardware, less functionality the better. I don't think it will take that long with a few people - look at what u/doggos did!
Some pedes are running for office, some of us have different skills that can be put to use.
WHY DON'T WE?
Voter ID, Pen, paper, and an jnked finger. Done.
There's actually already of pretty solid voter machines, 3rd party verifications, printed receipt, and a clear audit trail.. That's why the "elected" officials will never use those machines. Can't buy you're way into office with transparency.
How do you prevent people from counting them incorrectly? Or destroying the ballots they don't like? Or keeping observers from seeing the counting?
I just don't trust humans at this point to be decent or honest. The less access other people have to each ballot, the better.
Same argument applies to voting machines. Only instead of a black box of code, paper has an auditable paper trail.
If you can't trust humans to count, why would you trust humans to code the counting machines with even less transparency?
The machines I have in mind -
Vote on the machine, get a receipt with your vote and a unique ID for your ballot. These never connect to the internet. Totally closed with one receipt in the machine, one paper receipt kept under lock and key, the last receipt you take with you.
Still hashing out the way to get the voter to directly upload their vote without anyone else handling it at any point.
Once results are posted you use your ID to look up your vote to make sure it wasn't changed. . If it was, then there would be a way to remedy it based on your receipt, the other paper receipt and other situational information.
Use a number of different checks - # of people through the door vs # of votes cast at that location. Random phone count updates throughout the day so any abnormal spikes in data would become obvious. Simple things to add security outside of the machines.
Microsoft made a voting machine with a variety of audit trails and verifications. Basically their India devs made something based off their non-retarded voting standards in India.
But the 2 main issues are; no matter what a human you can't trust will be involved and election security is weak by design. We could easily improve elections in a hundred different ways, but having terrible election standards is the goal.
I know just enough about technology/code to know how the future is stupid and has far more vulnerabilities than old tech like paper. It's a miracle half this technology works at all. A physical paper trail that can't be hacked, deleted, or digitally adjusted or miscalculated by some minor code issue (which happens all the damn time).
TYpically with grant funded surveys, I have seen the counters actually use two people for manual data input off of survey sheets. If each of them made the same entry for each item on the survey it was considered valid. If the two data entry people input different answers for the same question it would have to be resolved.