Perhaps the main purpose of a computer is to carry out instructions in order to manipulate data, in order to change data. See the late Alan Turing's invention of the concept of computer software in his 1936 "Computable Numbers" paper. If there's an adjudication truth Misty Hampton did inarticulately point out in her youtube videos, it is -- although she did not say this -- that computers can so quickly and easily change the data stored within them that corrupt officials, who sometimes operate in the dark without election observers monitoring them, might be able to really take advantage of that.

(Hypothetically, encryption conceivably alters the scenario somewhat, passwords theoretically locking officials out at certain points and the like, but in an elections office context, where so many ballots and people and other issues are being handled during a stressful, busy election cycle, some sort of complicated encryption setup is pretty infeasible.)

If you want something incapable of changing the vote after the vote is first read, then what you want definitely isn't a computer. This is of course an argument for handmarked paper ballots. One might imagine a county with pencil-marked ones, and a Misty Hampton saying pencils are problematic because they have erasers that can assist crooked officials in altering ballots during adjudication processes. Well, use a pen. And there might still be adjudication processes where officials have to interpret voter intent. If you don't trust them, become an election scrutineer or otherwise fight for secret ballot-preserving transparency throughout the election system.

This footnote was created 14 September 2023 by Douglas Lucas for his article Lorem Ipsum.