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Without a paper audit trail, it can be difficult to detect errors or breaches in the voting machine’s software or hardware, possibly allowing an incursion into American voting systems to go unnoticed. Even if an error is found, performing an audit of a paperless system can be difficult or impossible given a lack of redundant records to verify vote totals.

These concerns are not hypothetical: At the 2018 DEF CON hacking conference, a computer scientist easily manipulated a paperless DRE system such that every vote for one candidate registered as a vote for their opponent. Even more troubling was that without a paper audit trail, it was not possible to know the true count for each candidate.

The vulnerability of paperless systems became a real issue during the tight Georgia gubernatorial and Texas senate races of 2018. In both cases, paperless DRE machines allegedly switched votes for Democratic candidates into Republican votes. While this was likely a software glitch, the lack of a paper audit trail confuses what the intended votes were, and whether these allegations were true.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-paper-is-considered-state-of-the-art-voting-technology/

Is there any country that fully uses paperless ballot? Considering that a without a paper audit trail it can be difficult to detect errors or breaches in voting, I am wondering if there's any country that still decided to fully phase out paper and use electronic machine for voting instead of using both or only paper.

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  • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_by_country ... typically e-voting is an option to complement traditional ballots, not fully as per the Q here. But with even a portion of votes paperless, in a close result, the same concerns still in play even when it is just an option
    – Pete W
    Commented Mar 30 at 14:14
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    Any particular reason for the downvotes? Maybe - or maybe not - the claims are alarmist, but that still leaves the question of whether of not this has been implemented anywhere? Though - clarification needed - what kinda polls we talking about? Elections for national leaders/parliament? Or electing the local dogcatcher? They may have different requirements, so if it is only "important positions" then that should be stated here.
    – Italian Philosopher
    Commented Mar 30 at 16:23
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    This is suprisingly difficult to answer. For a lot of countries, you find sentences like "conducting an election using electronic voting". But was it the only way to cast a vote? Did voters have the option to cast their votes on paper? Did only part of the polling stations use electronic voting machines? These details are often missing, even in reports by election observers.
    – ccprog
    Commented Mar 30 at 17:25
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    //"Maybe - or maybe not - the claims are alarmist, "// - . - . - . - I don't think the concern is alarmist at all. I would say that any claim of actual hacking is alarmist until someone shows real evidence supporting that claim. But we should head off trouble before it actually happens and the way to do that is to imagine how such hacking can happen. So I am concerned about the possibility of hacking that covers up its electronic tracks, the loss of transparency (we cannot see the electronic votes without the electronics telling us). We should have paper ballots...
    – robert bristow-johnson
    Commented Mar 30 at 20:43
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    ... with optical scan tabulators for the efficient tallying of the vote. If there is any credible claim of hacking of the electronic reporting of the vote, there is a natural paper trail, the original ballots, to examine to verify the reported vote (or to falsify it). And, unlike the dumb "butterfly ballots" (punch cards), with optical scan, if there is a recount, we can see the ballot exactly as the voter did, to judge voter intent. With butterfly ballots, they might get misaligned in the jig and the punched hole might not be for the candidate intended, and there's no way to find out.
    – robert bristow-johnson
    Commented Mar 30 at 20:47

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Brazil now has entirely electronic voting, no paper receipt is produced. The vote is recorded. Voting is done on a terminal, modelled on a phone booth. The voting machines identify voters. The vote is recorded electronically, and the machine tallies the votes.

The FT notes that, as of 2023, Brazil is the only country to use 100% purely electronic voting (Source)

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