The TrustVoting Blog
Plain-language writing on how elections work — and how to make them verifiable.
67 articles
Why the margin of error has to be smaller than the margin of victory
Austria's 2016 presidential election was annulled not because fraud was proven, but because 77,000 mishandled ballots…
Two democracies, opposite answers on voting computers
Germany looked at a voting computer and asked: can every citizen check this? Estonia asked: can we make voting easier?…
What a fully verifiable election would actually feel like to a voter
What would it actually feel like to vote in a system you could verify yourself — not by trusting an official, but by…
When one company builds, runs, and vouches for the vote
On August 2, 2017, the company that built Venezuela's voting machines told the world — publicly, in plain English —…
Open-source voting is necessary — and still not enough. Here's the rest.
LA County spent a decade building the world's most transparent voting system — open-source, publicly owned,…
'Trust us' vs. 'check for yourself': the only debate that matters in elections
On November 12, 2020, nine senior officials declared the election secure. The statement was true — and almost…
Designing a voting system so coercion simply cannot work
In North Macedonia in 2025, someone was keeping a list of who showed up to vote — and that list was the whole point.
Small, boring errors decide big elections more often than fraud does
In three Finnish towns in 2008, 232 people voted and their votes were simply never saved — no fraud, no hack, just a…
When a 'recount' just re-reads the same barcode
Georgia counted five million ballots by hand and called it a recount — but if the scanner reads a QR code you can't…
What international election observers actually watch for
International election monitors spend weeks inside a country's polling stations, tallying rooms, and…
From your precinct to the TV chyron: the fragile pipeline behind election-night numbers
Your vote travels through a dozen hands and three different systems before it becomes a number on TV — and at least one…
The paperless voting machine: a receipt-less transaction with democracy
In Sarasota County in 2006, 18,000 votes vanished into machines that left nothing to recount. A federal court in 2020…
Reproducible builds: proving the software running is the software you inspected
Switzerland published its voting source code so anyone could inspect it — and researchers immediately found a hidden…
Postal voting: the convenience, and the controls that have to come with it
A judge found that ballots cast by living people were submitted in the names of the dead — and the remedy was to throw…
Vote-buying is really a verification problem in disguise
Vote-buying isn't a crime problem — it's a market problem. And every market needs proof of delivery. Kill the proof,…
The 150-year-old invention your phone camera can quietly undo
A law passed in 1872 deliberately made your vote unprovable — and your phone camera can quietly undo 150 years of that…
The 'public' in public elections: a legal idea worth reviving
In 2009, Germany's highest court ruled that if ordinary citizens can't check the vote count themselves—without…
When the only working audit is a courtroom, the system already failed
Three countries held presidential elections. Three supreme courts had to throw them out. The question isn't why courts…
What separates a real audit from a rubber stamp
Every election gets an "audit." Almost none of them can actually change a result — and the word is doing a lot of work…
Every close election is a stress test your voting system probably fails
A fold in a ballot. Dust on a lens. No fraud, no malware — and still hundreds of miscounted votes in a race decided by…
'Certified' means it passed a test once. It doesn't mean it's safe today.
A security review cleared the system. Then outside researchers found the flaw—while 280,000 people were already voting.…
Why voting online is so much harder than banking online
Your bank lets you check every transaction. Your vote disappears by design — and the moment someone tries to fix that,…
Not all paper trails are equal: the receipt you can read vs. the one you can't
You voted. The machine printed a receipt with your choices—and a barcode you cannot read. A federal court confirmed:…
'Verifiable' is a word politicians love. Here's what it actually has to mean.
Kenya's Supreme Court annulled a presidential election not because fraud was proven, but because no one—not a judge,…
Chain of custody: the boring paperwork that decides if you can trust an election
An election was annulled across an entire country — not because anyone cheated, but because nobody could prove they…
Announcing a winner is not the same as proving the count
The EU's observers watched an entire presidential election conclude in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—and…
When the voting-machine company itself says: don't trust these numbers
In 2017, the company that built Venezuela's voting machines told the world the official turnout figure was a lie — by…
India kept its voting machines — but tightened the paper check. Why?
India's Supreme Court refused to scrap its voting machines — then immediately ordered stronger paper seals and…
Envelopes of cash, and a court that called it what it was
A Philippine mayor won an election, handed out envelopes of cash to prove it, and a supreme court took his job away —…
A mayor removed from office: the postal-vote case that shook London
An English judge removed a sitting mayor from office for postal-vote fraud, bribery, and personation — and the case…
When the pressure on voters comes from the government itself
Mexico's highest electoral court threw out a governorship because the government itself was the one doing the…
Voter tracking: the spreadsheet that makes coercion actually work
Someone in North Macedonia was keeping a list of who showed up to vote — and that list is the whole reason a secrecy…
The quiet pressure that decides elections before a single vote is counted
Someone offered a voter in Kyrgyzstan money for their ballot — and the only reason it worked is that the buyer could…
In a third of polling stations, someone could see how people voted
International monitors watched more than a third of Georgia's polling stations in 2024 and found that in every one of…
Where votes have a price: what monitors keep finding in Europe
In Albania's 2021 election, OSCE monitors found vote-buying so widespread it triggered criminal investigations — and it…
How a piece of paper in a box ended a century of open bribery
A piece of paper in a sealed box ended a century of open bribery — and now a phone camera is quietly undoing everything…
'The most secure election in history' — a claim worth examining, not just repeating
On November 12, 2020, the most authoritative election-security statement in American history was published — and its…
Federal auditors warned the voting-security safeguards weren't finished. In 2005.
In 2005, federal auditors told Congress the safeguards meant to secure your electronic vote still didn't fully exist —…
A folding machine, some dust, and hundreds of miscounted votes — no fraud required
A folding machine left a crease in the wrong place, dust settled on a lens, and hundreds of validly cast votes quietly…
You can't read the barcode that counts your vote. A federal court noticed.
Your ballot prints human-readable text — but the scanner ignores it and reads a barcode you cannot decode. A federal…
America spent billions to fix voting after 2000. Did it buy verifiability?
America spent $3 billion replacing punch-cards after the 2000 election chaos — but buying new hardware isn't the same…
The hanging chad and the standard nobody had written down
Florida 2000 didn't fail because of fraud — it failed because nobody had written down what a half-punched hole in a…
What if the public, not a vendor, owned the software that counts your vote?
Los Angeles County built the first publicly-owned, open-source vote-counting system certified in California — and it…
Brazil dares the public to attack its voting machines — on purpose
Brazil's election court doesn't just certify its voting machines — it publishes the rules and dares the public to break…
A mathematical 'proof' the votes were counted right — with a secret backdoor built in
Switzerland published its e-voting source code so anyone could check it — and within weeks, cryptographers found a…
280,000 people had already voted online before anyone noticed the hole
During a live election with 280,000 votes already cast, two researchers found a flaw the official security review had…
They opened the internet-voting pilot to the public. It fell in 48 hours.
A university team broke into Washington D.C.'s internet voting pilot, changed every ballot, and made the server play a…
The world's most famous online-voting system, taken apart by researchers
Independent researchers watched Estonia's celebrated internet voting system run a live national election — and…
Norway tried internet voting for years, then quietly walked away
Norway built a nationwide internet-voting system, ran it for two elections, watched the turnout stay flat — and then…
Ireland bought a national e-voting system, then couldn't prove it worked
Ireland spent millions on voting machines that sat in a warehouse for five years, then got scrapped — because an…
The system caught it — and it still took five years nobody could watch
In 2020, thousands of fabricated voter-registration forms hit one Michigan county. The guardrails held — no fake voter…
The country that un-invented the voting computer
In 2007, a Dutch government commission asked a simple question: can an ordinary citizen verify that a voting computer…
Germany's top court: if only an expert can check the count, it isn't a real election
Germany's highest court ruled in 2009 that if understanding an election result requires a computer science degree, it…
232 votes vanished into a computer, and a court ordered a whole new election
A court ordered a whole new election — not because anyone proved fraud, but because 232 voters pressed "confirm" and…
They found no fraud. They re-ran the election anyway.
Austria's highest court threw out a presidential election in 2016 — not because anyone cheated, but because no one…
Correction fluid decided an election — until the courts noticed
A small bottle of white correction fluid altered enough tally sheets to void an entire presidential election — and the…
A supreme court threw out a presidential election because no one could check the numbers
Kenya's Supreme Court didn't just overturn an election — it ruled that a result no one can independently trace from…
A voting machine is a computer. "Certified" doesn't mean you can trust it
In 2004, Ireland spent millions on voting machines it never used—because an independent commission couldn't prove they…
Antrim County was caught because it was absurd. What about the errors that aren't?
Antrim County's error got caught because it was laughably obvious. The elections that should terrify you are the ones…
The scariest attacker already has the keys
The people who copied Georgia's entire voting system weren't hackers who broke in — they were let through the front…
The election that got thrown out: what happens when nobody can trace a ballot
Austria cancelled a presidential election — not because anyone cheated, but because nobody could prove they hadn't.…
"We counted it by hand" is a reassurance, not a proof
Georgia's historic hand count of 5 million ballots is held up as proof elections work — but the same method was off by…
The secret ballot is a security feature, not a courtesy
The secret ballot wasn't invented to protect your privacy — it was invented to make buying and threatening you…
Your precinct has the numbers on election night. So why do you wait three days?
Slow, opaque counts force you to wait and trust. The fix isn't a lecture about why the numbers move — it's every…
Open-source voting: necessity, not hype
The software counting your vote is a secret — and the officials asking you to trust it have no way to prove it's doing…
Why a paper trail isn't enough on its own
A Princeton professor plugged a real voting machine into his lab bench in 2006 and proved it could steal an election…
What is a risk-limiting audit, and why does it matter?
In a race decided by 369 votes, officials had nothing independent to recount — because the machines were paperless.…