I have yet to find someone that can explain me how homomorphic encryption works in a way that I fully understand. And I'm a software engineer. I understand RSA or Diffie Hellman. A lot of people understand RSA or Diffie Hellman. Almost nobody understands homomorphic encryption. This means that almost nobody even has the necessary base knowledge to even being able to review an e-voting system.
Without voting secrecy, I'd say that building a robust system would work reasonably well. With voting secrecy, it's a different story.
Sadly this is true and I agree to that. I am also a fan of open voting, but I can see that general society is not ready for that.
And to your other points I mainly agree, but I am a bit more optimistic, than one can build a system of open trust, even though I have to admit, that I also do not understand the specific system, but I also did not really look into it.
I very much agree to your point, that laypersons need to be able to understand the system. At least the basic concept. No dark magic.
After all a vote is just encrypted information going to a server.
The details are more complex, sure, but there is a growing number of tech literate people.
So not all people might understand it all directly, but if their neigbhor does (and indeed also checks occasionally), then this might be enough.