> Voter intimidation is a lot easier, for example, if you know where and when to turn up.

But for the same reason it's a lot easier to prevent. If you show up at the polls to intimidate voters you get arrested. If you do it to other members of your household, or your employees or union members, nobody there is independent. Anybody who reports it still has to live or work with those people the next day, so people don't report it.

> You would probably find it easier to tamper with a voting machine if you know where they're going to be, and if more people have access to them, too.

Not when there are election monitors there watching you. With paper ballots you fill out your ballot behind a screen, but you drop it into the machine in front of everybody.

Also, many of the voting machine vulnerabilities are as a result of submitting specially crafted ballots. Which is another reason you want to give people their ballot and have them fill it out by hand and submit it immediately, instead of giving them an unlimited amount of time and access to a computer and a printer while "filling out" their ballot.

Of course the better solution in either case is to use voting machines without security vulnerabilities, but there aren't always enough ponies for everybody.

> If you show up at the polls to intimidate voters you get arrested.

Yes, if this is consistently and fairly enforced, I agree - only doubting that it is because I honestly don't know, and hopefully never have to find out firsthand.

> many of the voting machine vulnerabilities are as a result of submitting specially crafted ballots

Yeah, fair enough. I don't know enough about the vulnerabilities, but if this is the case, I agree.