> Some 3,000 voters will run their paper ballots through the new machines, and then, to ensure nothing went awry, those same votes will be hand counted in a public session in Concord, N.H. Anyone who cares to will be able to see if the new machines recorded the votes correctly
If hand counting paper ballots instills confidence, then at some low level of public confidence in elections, it makes sense to do so routinely, rather than just a demonstration. Vilifying doubters doesn't seem to be very effective. For many of those there is no level of proof that could dent their opinion, so little is lost by simply attacking them. But there are many others that are convincible by sufficient openness.
Sure, turning it back into a manual process has its own issues, particularly with efficiency. But with an election efficiency is a minor consideration compared to confidence.
There have traditionally been ways to mess with a hand count.
One example I recall is vote counters wedging a piece of pencil lead under a fingernail. If they see a ballot they don't like, swipe the lead across it and toss the ballot in the "spoiled" pile.
Sure, this requires a little bit of blind eye from the county clerk (or whoever), but if the election goes the right way, it's worth it.
Some problems with this, besides the problems that other posters have already mentioned.
* One vote counter can't make much of a difference by themselves, so you need a conspiracy of vote counters. But conspiracies are difficult to bring about and keep secret in the real world. This is especially so if you have to pay the individuals involved – which seems likely, given that vote counting is boring, thankless volunteer work.
* Everyone involved in the conspiracy risks going to jail, but hardly anyone benefits on a personal level. Why would anyone risk it?
* The extremely large number of spoiled ballots would be suspicious. Especially as they'd probably look rather unlike ordinary spoiled ballots.
* Observers would notice that some counters (those involved in the conspiracy) were processing many more spoiled ballots than others.
I'm reminded of Number 2 pointing out do Dr. Evil that he could quadruple his profits if he shifted his resources away from evil empire building and towards Starbucks. The money and resources spent on rigging the count could be spent more efficiently on 100% legal means of increasing vote count, such as canvasing (= knocking on supporters' doors and encouraging them to go vote).
>Counter example: broken ciphers in WW2 mostly kept secret until the mid 1970s.
How's this a counterexample? We know about about lots of conspiracies from the 1970s that weren't known at the time, but we're not finding out about any conspiracies to rig UK election counts – because there weren't any that succeeded to a meaningful extent. Your example shows that even top secret government conspiracies tend to come to light eventually.
In the UK party candidates and guests are watching the count so would pick that up. It's very rare that the losing candidate plus all spoiled votes makes a difference in any case, and significant numbers of double voting would raise very interesting questions. They simply don't happen.
If hand counting paper ballots instills confidence, then at some low level of public confidence in elections, it makes sense to do so routinely, rather than just a demonstration. Vilifying doubters doesn't seem to be very effective. For many of those there is no level of proof that could dent their opinion, so little is lost by simply attacking them. But there are many others that are convincible by sufficient openness.
Sure, turning it back into a manual process has its own issues, particularly with efficiency. But with an election efficiency is a minor consideration compared to confidence.