> Jimmy Carter spoke about this, literally in some town the sheriff watches you vote and chucks it into the trash if you didn't pick their candidate.
That is a flaw of the American model of allowing local governments to run state and national elections.
In many other countries, local government has no role to play in non-local elections. All elections are 100% run by either a state or national elections agency.
I believe locally run elections are a good thing. As fraud would have to be perpetrated against multiple election systems. However, I also think there should be standards such as electronically tallied, hand-marked paper ballots saved for potential future audit.
Several other countries have independent electoral commissions running elections, as opposed to elected politicians. It is much easier for voters to trust the people running elections when they are required by law to be apolitical.
Look for example at the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC)
Simple diversity doesn’t speak to a level of security. All the attacker needs is time to canvas these locations, identify the weakest and then exploit those.
Given an adversary with basically X$s, they can target Y election types.
Having a common system reduces the variety, but ensures that there is an equivalent amount of resources to deal with adversaries.
For what it’s worth, India which has the most complex election requirements by a mile, uses a single system. Entered as an example of how election services are better delivered using a single system.
That is a flaw of the American model of allowing local governments to run state and national elections.
In many other countries, local government has no role to play in non-local elections. All elections are 100% run by either a state or national elections agency.