You can secure the process of generating the IDs. Stick it all into an encrypted database, distribute shards of the key among several individuals, and pass laws that prevent them from putting it back together to decrypt the database unless certain conditions arise, like evidence of election fraud and a court subpoena.
Yes, it’s not guaranteed 100% anonymous. However:
- No election is guaranteed 100% anonymous - including paper ballots. If people are willing to commit crime to track votes, they’ll put cameras in polling places, or find ways to mark ballots, or pay polling officials to watch how you vote, etc.
I’m tired of seeing complaints that e-voting is inherently flawed because it’s not a perfect system. The question is whether it could be more perfect than paper-ballot voting, and the answer is an undeniable yes. It’s not rational to pretend or deny that paper ballots have no vulnerabilities: see above.
- If you have to pick between two kinds of election traits - (a) completely anonymous but completely unverifiable accuracy, and (b) nearly-complete anonymity and extremely verifiable accuracy - which would you choose?
An election process that is not verifiable is useless. If the result can be changed and cannot be trusted, then the votes don’t matter.
