I think having something physical gives something anyone can check later. With something electronic how can you be certain if it has been hacked or not? With your system you'd have to go back to each person and ask what they did press.
No you wouldn't. Remember I said that you are still given a ballot paper but it just has a barcode (or similar) on which is referenced to your voter number when you check in.
When you scan the barcode your vote is registered and the system won't let you vote again.
So you still have a paper trail if need be.
And if the system was done correctly, why would you need a recount?
But I do take people's point about the civil services past record of delivering successful IT systems - it is woeful.
To be honest I reckon that the current system can be hacked quite easily.
I could have taken my son's card down and voted using it - I don't beleive any check that they do today would have prevented that.
Likewise if I lived in a communal area with a shared letterbox, reckon you could take all of those and vote using them.
If you are a postie you could probably lift quite a few and vote with those.
And if I pushed blank piece of paper in the box, walked out with my slip, photocopied it, came back and posted those I wouldn't be surprised if that would get through too. Yes they might all have the same number but they are counted manually and when they count them they don't cross reference against the voter list so I doubt duplicates would be picked up.
As for being spotted, the system is run by OAPs and PTA\Soccer mums - doubt they would spot anything.
Obviously none of this would work on a huge scale but then neither would hacking the computer.
But what about counting - why is that done manually, even using today's system.
Cheers,
Nigel