Nope, all they collect is date of registration and last time the client connected to the server. Has been proven in court.

I am not 100 % sure I understand your point here. Using paper ballots doesn’t mean you have to submit your vote via mail. You can still use local polling stations.

I assume you are from the US, so here is what we do in Germany:

• You are notified via mail of the upcoming election you are eligible to take part in (No special registration required, only the usual registry with the municipality if you move to a new place)
• Option A: You opt in for a (paper) mail ballot
  • You receive a ballot via mail that you fill out and then double wrap the ballot: The ballot goes into an official unmarked envelope that is later placed with every other mail-in ballot of the district. The unmarked enveloped goes into a regular envelope for transportation via mail (which is free of charge)
• Option B: On the day of the election, you head to your assigned local polling station
  • You identify yourself by one of the official forms (Personal ID, driving licence, passport)
  • You are handed a blank paper ballot ([example from northern Germany](file:///home/se/Downloads/Muster-Stimmzettel_zur_Bundestagswahl_2025_im_Wahlkreis_1.PDF))
  • You make your choice behind a privacy screen
    • Law declares that the head of the local election council has to be able to view both the booth and the voter (but of course not the vote) except in some special circumstances.
  • The ballot is then placed in a sealed urn
  • After the deadline at 18:00 the urn is unsealed and votes are counted
    • Critically: This counting is public. While not many people do, it is explicitly allowed to watch the officials at this stage
  • After tallying the votes, the ballots are bundled up, sealed and handed to the officials on the municipality level.

One of the many issues with electronic voting are those last two steps: Examining the votes can never be public, as we are simply unable to look at the state of all electrons in a computer.

+1 for paper ballots (relevant xkcd )

-9999 for banning voting booths

I’m eagerly waiting for his upcoming book about this terrible disease.

I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit longer as John probably has to add a few more chapters due to current events …

US simultaneously wants the world to depend on them while also treating them like second class Allies.

That’s a core principle of colonialism: The colony acts as a cheap resource provider and sales market for the colonizer at the same time while having no actual autonomy.

We also can see a similar dynamic in modern globalism where production facilities were moved to countries where labour is cheap. Which is the reason many people call globalism colonialism 2.0.

Russia won’t run out of troops, but they will run out of capable troops: Russian Casualties & Force Generation - Losses, Recruitment & Sustaining the war in Ukraine

We happily take the blame for WW2, but WW1 is on Austria!