Arguably having a "correct" winner matters the least in tight elections. If the margin of victory is as-low as 1% then it hardly matters which candidate wins - that election is already subject to the influence of weather, chance, accident and human counting error.
There really is no supernatural magic to democracy that invests within the winner a moral or judgemental superiority. The ceremony and culture we surround democracy with can create that illusion. In an almost holy way, we anoint the winner and assign to them a minor god-like status. Their choice is said to reflect the will of the people, to be the personification of a mandate. But rationally, we should realise that a candidate who wins by 1% is about as likely to lose if the election was run the next day.
What's scary about e-voting is that democracy is really only very good at preventing complete tyranny. Potential tyrants are unlikely to gain enough votes. But with e-voting, errors of 50% are as easy and as likely as errors of 1%.
one problem is that when last-lousy-point fraud is used to tip a tight election one way rather than the other, the election has now provably gone to the party that was willing to win it by unethical means.
There really is no supernatural magic to democracy that invests within the winner a moral or judgemental superiority. The ceremony and culture we surround democracy with can create that illusion. In an almost holy way, we anoint the winner and assign to them a minor god-like status. Their choice is said to reflect the will of the people, to be the personification of a mandate. But rationally, we should realise that a candidate who wins by 1% is about as likely to lose if the election was run the next day.
What's scary about e-voting is that democracy is really only very good at preventing complete tyranny. Potential tyrants are unlikely to gain enough votes. But with e-voting, errors of 50% are as easy and as likely as errors of 1%.