> [...] it's easier to manipulate the far fewer people who do the aggregation for final results.
That problem can easily be solved with transparency. In Germany I can do my own tally of the election results as every state reports the votes down the individual polling station. For example, here are the results for Berlin from the last Bundestags election: https://www.wahlen-berlin.de/wahlen/BU2013/ErgebWahllokale/w...
I can also observe the count at my local polling station. They are required to announce their results orally after they're done counting and I can confirm that this is the result reported online.
I've been an election helper and I've always checked that the results online match those that we reported. I never did my own tally, but if the results are close I'm sure someone does them.
That problem can easily be solved with transparency. In Germany I can do my own tally of the election results as every state reports the votes down the individual polling station. For example, here are the results for Berlin from the last Bundestags election: https://www.wahlen-berlin.de/wahlen/BU2013/ErgebWahllokale/w...
I can also observe the count at my local polling station. They are required to announce their results orally after they're done counting and I can confirm that this is the result reported online.
I've been an election helper and I've always checked that the results online match those that we reported. I never did my own tally, but if the results are close I'm sure someone does them.