Should e-voting be a new standard in the election voting system?

A properly designed e-voting system can be more secure than a paper system.

Now you issue mag-cards that you insert into the machine, you vote, the machine records your vote and writes your vote on a harddrive and onto the card. The computer will send the results, once the polls are closed. If there is any question on the vote or the machine breaks down, the cards can be read and the votes recounted.

Of course you'd secure the computer, etc. but I can make it faster and more secure than any paper system.

The best system I have seen is the way we vote locally. You vote on a paper ballot and then they scan it. The paper gives you a hard record and the scanner gives you the count minutes after the polls close. That way if the votes need to be recounted you still have the physical ballots. I think they do sample audits after the election to see if the scanners were accurate. I deal enough with electronic to know they can fail. It does not have to be fraud just a failure of the electronics or programming. With machines if something can go wrong it will. You can not tell if a machine did not register a vote or the person did not vote in a race.

Voting machines don't have paper records either. And they have been around way before electronic voting. Sometimes paper ballots cause problems too. I'm sure we all remember the "hanging chad" debacle. E-voting machines are quicker and easier to use, but yes, they have problems too. At no point should we allow voting from home, as there are no controls over who is voting, etc. Texas uses paper ballots that are then scanned. I agree that is better for recounts, but not as easy to use than the old fashion mechanical voting booths.

There are too many potential vulnerabilities and uncertainties involved in using a complex electronic system. Quite apart from issues of tampering and vote rigging, there are possibilities of programming errors going undetected.

It is very difficult to tamper with a piece of paper marked with a pencil. Even using a pen adds extra variables (like people replacing the pen with one that uses disappearing ink - it has happened!). For an issue as sensitive as voting, we should remove uncertainty as much as possible.