When it comes to IT and systems, I sometimes use something I call the "alien test". If a flying saucer landed and the little green gent got out and asked "Hey, what are you doing?" could we explain what we were doing and why in a way that the alien could appreciate? Or would he think we were nuts and destroy us with his death ray because we made him irritable? I find this test very useful when it comes to issues of complexity -- is what we are doing as simple as possible and only as complex as is necessary? If what we are doing is very complex, can we tell the green dude why?

I'm probably a bit of a wet blanket, but I think that any online scheme involving multi-factor authentication would have a lot of areas of exposure/risk -- hijacked computers/browsers, stolen thumbs, diversion of identified voting results to the King ("Off with their thumbs!").

While I would like something better, the simple unassociated nature of putting an anonymous ballot in a bubble reader works for me -- and absentee ballots and motor-voter stuff that just makes it easier to vote without much more complexity and that are generally usable by most/all potential voters.

I have to say that the notion of somebody sitting in their 43rd floor penthouse and sliding their thumb over a reader while the lumpen underclass struggles below with a broken pencil, well, it kind of seems like something out of a Heinlein novel!