- Switzerland usually gets around this by knowing where everyone lives and mailing them a piece of paper 'something you have'

- South Africa gets around this by putting ink on your fingernail

I've read quite a bit about the e-voting systems in Switzerland and USA and I just don't see how they thread the needle. At some point, you have to give someone access to a database and they can change that database.

Until we all have government-issued public keys or something, there isn't a technical solution to this? (Genuinely curious if I'm wrong here)

That being said for the United States, I am in favor of in-person voting requiring proof of citizenship, and making "voting day" a paid national holiday. Not so much for technical or efficiency reasons but for social reasons. I'd argue it should be mandatory but I don't think we should force people to do anything we don't have to force them to do, and I'm not sure we want disinterested people voting anyway.

Exercising democracy, requiring people to put in a minimal amount of thought and effort goes a long way. It should be a celebratory day with cookies and apple pie and free beer for all. Not some cold, AI-riddled, stay in your house and never meet your neighbors, clicking a few buttons to accept the Terms of Democracy process.

I know there's a lot of discussion points around "efficiency" or "cost" or "accessibility" or how difficult it supposedly is to have an ID (which is weird when you look at how other countries run elections) and there are certainly things to discuss there, but by and large I think the continued digitalization and alienation of Americans is a much worse problem that can be addressed with more in-person activities and participation in society. We're losing too many touchpoints with reality.

This is why you do parallel paper/electronic voting. Fill it out electronically, it prints a receipt (maybe including a QR code), you mail the receipt (along with the 'classic' absentee voting stuff, i.e. double envelope, proof of eligibility to vote in the outer envelope.)

Oh and as a side effect it can be audited very nicely.

> Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise.

From Wikipedia [1]:

> A pilot experiment, pilot study, pilot test or pilot project is a small-scale preliminary study conducted to evaluate feasibility, duration, cost, adverse events, and improve upon the study design prior to performance of a full-scale research project.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_experiment

You'll get there Switzerland, it can be done. It is safer and faster.