What we see, over and over, in US elections is a mysterious and large influx of "found" votes that come in in the small hours of the morning to flip a race (typically towards a Dem candidate).
This seems to happen when those rigging the vote can see the progress of the count and then determine how many "votes" they will need to "find" to get their desired result. To prevent this, rather than counting the votes for each candidate as the night progresses, all votes should just be counted (a total number of votes). Only once there are no more votes to be "found" should the actual tabulation of votes for each candidate begin. Once that point has been reached, there can be no additional votes added, and the total votes can be checked against the expected total number of votes. This approach does not require trust from any one party. Obviously, there would be issues such as invalid ballots, or miscounting (deliberate or accidental) that would still need to be taken into account, but the possibility of several hundred thousand votes, falling 95% to one candidate, being "found" at 3am is removed.
Alternatively, and possibly more simply, the cutoff for mail in ballots must be before in person voting even starts. Then you know the number of mail in ballots (which remain uncounted for the candidates until after voting has finished). You can also quite easily keep a count of in person votes, so at the end of in person voting, you have a total number of votes and the possibility of additional votes being added is removed.
Another measure that might help could be a form of voir dire for all poll workers, who are selected through sortition (like jury duty). Any who have a specific party affiliation, or who have worked on a political campaign would be excluded. Partisan people should not be counting votes, they cannot be trusted.
There are practical measures that could easily be taken that would not impact significantly on the cost or time required to conduct an election, but would significantly improve the integrity of the results. Whatever measures are put in place, they should always be based on zero trust on any party involved. Neither party seems willing to do anything like this, though the Dems would fight it to the death.
What we see, over and over, in US elections is a mysterious and large influx of "found" votes that come in in the small hours of the morning to flip a race (typically towards a Dem candidate).
This seems to happen when those rigging the vote can see the progress of the count and then determine how many "votes" they will need to "find" to get their desired result. To prevent this, rather than counting the votes for each candidate as the night progresses, all votes should just be counted (a total number of votes). Only once there are no more votes to be "found" should the actual tabulation of votes for each candidate begin. Once that point has been reached, there can be no additional votes added, and the total votes can be checked against the expected total number of votes. This approach does not require trust from any one party. Obviously, there would be issues such as invalid ballots, or miscounting (deliberate or accidental) that would still need to be taken into account, but the possibility of several hundred thousand votes, falling 95% to one candidate, being "found" at 3am is removed.
Alternatively, and possibly more simply, the cutoff for mail in ballots must be before in person voting even starts. Then you know the number of mail in ballots (which remain uncounted for the candidates until after voting has finished). You can also quite easily keep a count of in person votes, so at the end of in person voting, you have a total number of votes and the possibility of additional votes being added is removed.
Another measure that might help could be a form of voir dire for all poll workers, who are selected through sortition (like jury duty). Any who have a specific party affiliation, or who have worked on a political campaign would be excluded. Partisan people should not be counting votes, they cannot be trusted.
There are practical measures that could easily be taken that would not impact significantly on the cost or time required to conduct an election, but would significantly improve the integrity of the results. Whatever measures are put in place, they should always be based on zero trust on any party involved. Neither party seems willing to do anything like this, though the Dems would fight it to the death.
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