We vote a lot in Switzerland on a lot of issues but we do so on paper ballots which we can either drop directly in the box or send in the post. When there is a close vote the maximum wait for a result is usually around 4-5 hours so that isn't really an issue either. Counting is a highly distributed effort and IMO that also reduces the risk for large scale fraud.
Switzerland has the highest functioning democracy on the planet.
It worked enough for people to be using it.
> Switzerland has the highest functioning democracy on the planet.
Somehow I think being completely secure in last two world wars contributes to the success of their high functioning democracy. Also, I thought we were talking about elections not democracy.
Democracy can work perfectly well even if the elections select completely random party to rule if all parties are good enough.
Paper elections are simple and everyone understands them. The controls are largely that there are a lot of observers.
Trust is vital in elections.
Personally I find other mechanism to heavily criminalize vote buying as being effective to discouraging that behavior and providing a slip of paper to the voter that enables them to post factor validate that their vote was counted as they believe it should have been to be much more valuable.
but its important to address the issue that some people have.
Who knows, maybe that's a road to equivalent of universal income. Being paid for your vote for one party or another.
This system was described in Spanish Beggars by Nancy Kress
Like fine wine
A cryptography research body held an election and they can't decrypt the results - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46020596 - Nov 2025 (38 comments)
belter•2mo ago