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?
You realize what you said, right?
In places like maricopa county, they did paper ballots and the reason they ended up with dominion machines was because of " over voting" and other problems " with the machines not reading the vote" which I think was all created by them making voters use certain markers on the ballots to purposefully cause machine reading problems.
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.
Mandate observers, put in different random time checks and counts to compare # of voters that come through the door to # of votes on computer.
Like you said, phone results ahead of usb data.
There are lots of ways