voting "machines" eliminate voting

“A good voting protocol must be designed so that...”

As I wrote above, the important thing is public confidence.  Britain's major public elections
have always made it possible (though not trivial) to match every single vote cast to the
voter's name and address.  But British people have yet to do more than occasionally moan that
this seems a little underhanded.

To get specific, each ballot paper in a British election is numbered and when you're handed a
ballot paper its number is written next to your name on the list of those eligible to vote in
the election. This material must by law be kept for some time after the election is over. All
you need is a reverse index (painful sixty years ago, but easy now) and you have a list of how
everyone voted.

We know (from documents released under a time limit rule) that previous governments have
secretly authorised security services to match the numbers up and then target people who voted
for certain minority parties. Obviously today's government denies that it would do such a
thing, but that's the nature of politics.