Think of it like a vending machine, you input your ID, the system recognizes it as legitimate, and that you are the only "you" in the mix here. Then you press a button indicating your vote. The vending machine sends the receipt of your vote to all other vending machines for them to save on their system as well, so no one could steal your ID and vote on your behalf elsewhere.

In order to change your vote, someone would have to go around to every single vending machine and hand modify that replicated "receipt" of your vote on every single machine. But this is impossible, because every few minutes all of the vending machines "stamp" the receipt list to prevent tampering.

"Proof of Work" is essentially one of these vending machines drawing straws to see which one gets to "stamp" the "receipt list," the machines have to prove they were randomly selected, and this is done by randomly guessing an answer to a cryptographic mathematical problem. There's no way to pre-determine the answer through logic, the machines just have to say "is it... the number 7?" and the cryptographic proof can only say yes or no. As soon as the correct number is "guessed" (this is what's called mining), that particular computer stamps the receipt list and shows it's proof to the other machines that the work was done "randomly" / "correctly," essentially showing there's no tampering. This whole process serves to keep the receipt list "scribe" decentralized, because in centralized systems, the scribe can be tricked or can be a bad actor.

Several countries have tried internet voting and abandonned it as being insecure.

That is because often the receipt list is held by a centralized entity in those cases. This causes a "honeypot" scenario, where even if the ones hosting the service are trying to be trustworthy, it's still a "honeypot" for hackers, they win if they can get into the "one vault" centralized receipt list. However, in a trust-LESS system like the vending machine example, there can be no tampering, therefore there is no trust involved in the equation.

It's like describing a bank robbery where all your money is kept in one vault, if they get in and out, all is lost. However, if you have your wealth distributed between many millions and millions of boxes, that are all constantly checking on each other's value, the heist on one is noticed and rectified immediately. Not even rectified really, it just can't happen since the other vaults would have to approve the change AND would require your personal ID-"NFT" to even make a change since your vote is cryptographically locked behind your identity.

Would people actually check their own ballots in the database? If they didn't then they could still be erroneous.

There's no need to audit in the vending machine example, but at the same time, anyone could if they wanted to. The only way to see what vote my name is associated with, is to use the ID-"NFT" that only belongs to me. Could even make it biometric. But the system doesn't need to know my name to tally the votes, it just needs to know that my vote was given to the system correctly (which is where that tricky cryptography comes in)

If you can corrupt the right six machines you can control the outcome.

But see, with blockchains, and like my vending machine example, you'd have to corrupt EVERY machine at the same time just to modify one person's vote. This is impossible since other machines would notice the tomfoolery and reject the vote / transaction. It wouldn't be saved to the receipt list.

I'm trying to use examples that somewhat coorellate to real world esque systems, so I apologize if it still seems abstract. If you want to do your own research, I'd suggest starting with a basic overview here, which focuses on Zero-Trust architectures that would be best for voting systems. It's a good simple read that will explain what I've gone through here in perhaps an even simpler way.

Again, these systems already exist and are in use, and I would think that the white hat tech guys would realize this would be one of the best options for operating an election. Since we're not seeing a push for that yet, I suspect some tomfoolery will be up on either side come election time. Perhaps to highlight the corruption of the system even moreso

Think of it like a vending machine, you input your ID, the system recognizes it as legitimate, and that you are the only "you" in the mix here. Then you press a button indicating your vote. The vending machine sends the receipt of your vote to all other vending machines for them to save on their system as well, so no one could steal your ID and vote on your behalf elsewhere.

In order to change your vote, someone would have to go around to every single vending machine and hand modify that replicated "receipt" of your vote on every single machine. But this is impossible, because every few minutes all of the vending machines "stamp" the receipt list to prevent tampering.

"Proof of Work" is essentially one of these vending machines drawing straws to see which one gets to "stamp" the "receipt list," the machines have to prove they were randomly selected, and this is done by randomly guessing an answer to a cryptographic mathematical problem. There's no way to pre-determine the answer through logic, the machines just have to say "is it... the number 7?" and the cryptographic proof can only say yes or no. As soon as the correct number is "guessed" (this is what's called mining), that particular computer stamps the receipt list and shows it's proof to the other machines that the work was done "randomly" / "correctly," essentially showing there's no tampering. This whole process serves to keep the receipt list "scribe" decentralized, because in centralized systems, the scribe can be tricked or can be a bad actor.

Several countries have tried internet voting and abandonned it as being insecure.

That is because often the receipt list is held by a centralized entity in those cases. This causes a "honeypot" scenario, where even if the ones hosting the service are trying to be trustworthy, it's still a "honeypot" for hackers, they win if they can get into the "one vault" centralized receipt list. However, in a trust-LESS system like the vending machine example, there can be no tampering, therefore there is no trust involved in the equation.

It's like describing a bank robbery where all your money is kept in one vault, if they get in and out, all is lost. However, if you have your wealth distributed between many millions and millions of boxes, that are all constantly checking on each other's value, the heist on one is noticed and rectified immediately. Not even rectified really, it just can't happen since the other vaults would have to approve the change

Would people actually check their own ballots in the database? If they didn't then they could still be erroneous.

There's no need to audit in the vending machine example, but at the same time, anyone could if they wanted to. The only way to see what vote my name is associated with, is to use the ID-"NFT" that only belongs to me. Could even make it biometric. But the system doesn't need to know my name to tally the votes, it just needs to know that my vote was given to the system correctly (which is where that tricky cryptography comes in)

If you can corrupt the right six machines you can control the outcome.

But see, with blockchains, and like my vending machine example, you'd have to corrupt EVERY machine at the same time just to modify one person's vote. This is impossible since other machines would notice the tomfoolery and reject the vote / transaction. It wouldn't be saved to the receipt list.

I'm trying to use examples that somewhat coorellate to real world esque systems, so I apologize if it still seems abstract. If you want to do your own research, I'd suggest starting with a basic overview here, which focuses on Zero-Trust architectures that would be best for voting systems.

Again, these systems already exist and are in use, and I would think that the white hat tech guys would realize this would be one of the best options for operating an election. Since we're not seeing a push for that yet, I suspect some tomfoolery will be up on either side come election time. Perhaps to highlight the corruption of the system even moreso