I really like this type of innovation, but I don't understand this defense against "vote buying." Can't the vote purchaser require the voter to take a picture of the completed ballot with their camera? That's a pretty easy way to verify if they followed through on their vote. I do like all of the other transparency issues and checking your voting results online though.
Well, a vote buyer can do this under current systems as well.
However, it's a little more tricky than that, because a voter could snap the photo, and then spoil the ballot, and the buyer would never know. That's why ballots are filled out in private.
Well, the voter doesn't have a second ballot. In a well run system, ballots are very secure, one per voter, observed into the booth, out of the booth, and into the box.
In the scenario I described the voter takes the money and turns in a spoiled ballot. So the buyer only gets a spoiled ballot, instead of a vote in favour of his candidate.
All vote buying scams are vulnerable to this tactic, even the Reel.
I've been hoping for a cryptographic solution to the question of vote-counting integrity for a long time. This looks really promising (and, possibly, affordable). Hopefully we'll see wide adoption of systems like this, and can toss Diebold machines like the trash that they are.
