Source: former poll judge, inspector.

To use the engineering aphorism, just because it can be done doesn't mean it is done. I'm curious about how physical security/verification works in that environment vs a hypothetical crypto solution.

Election and voting chicanery happens plenty in the USA. No need to look abroad. Merely lifting the floor here would be transformative.

The silver lining from the oversteer triggered by Gore v Bush 2000 is that HAVA did lead to greater federal involvement in our locally administered elections. eg Election Assistance Commission http://eac.gov is now fairly proactive.

re "vs a hypothetical crypto solution"

Estonia's online voting system hasn't faired well under scrutiny.

The thing about the crudeness of methods used to tamper with paper ballots is that it's also similarly trivial for a bunch of volunteers including members of all different parties involved in the election to spot, and in many cases trivial to reverse.

The old way, you need an entire army of idiots.