Why do you get a receipt when you go to the supermarket? Why does your credit-card company send you a monthly statement?

Imagine when you were rung up at the supermarket, the cashier simply declared the final total that you were owed. Imagine you were expected to just pay the total and walk out, without a receipt. You might trust your neighborhood grocer, but do you trust them enough to participate in a transaction like that?

What if, one day when you checked out, you thought the price was a bit high. You wouldn’t want to offend your friendly neighborhood grocer, but when you arrived home, you could add up all the prices on the price tags. What would you do if you found that the price you should have paid was $30, but the grocer charged you $40? Remember, you don’t have a receipt. So you couldn’t go to the grocer and demand your money back, because he could just say “I charged you $30.” If you went to the police, or took the grocer to court, it would be your word against his. A receipt protects you, the individual, from a scenario like this.

Imagine now that you are a grocer, in the same receipt-less society. A dishonest customer can take you to court, claiming that you have been overcharging him. As before, it would be your word against his. Maybe he’s a well-respected member of the community with deep pockets to finance a long legal battle — you might well lose, and have to pay him money that you don’t actually owe. A receipt protects you, the institution, as well.

Imagine that credit-card companies didn’t archive or reveal information about individual purchases, and just mailed their customers a bill with the total due every month. The amount of credit-card fraud and litigation would be much higher. Dishonest merchants would over-bill or double-bill consumers. Disgruntled credit-card employees would embezzle funds. Dishonest companies would ream consumers. And dishonest consumers would challenge their statements, knowing that they could occasionally win and avoid paying what they rightfully owe.

Would a receipt-less economy work very well? No. The power of easy documentation and audit keeps our financial system largely honest, trustworthy, and reliable. And if there is a dispute, it’s resolved quickly and correctly in court.

Why, then, is a system of electronic voting that offers absolutely no opportunity for audit, verification, or resolution of disputes being used to count votes? Especially when the CEO of the company has a stated interest in delivering more votes for a certain political party?

Functional, safe, secure, and auditable computerized voting is possible. Don’t we care as much about our right to vote as we do about our money?