Back in the dark ages, 2010 or so, the gold standard of network security was physically isolating a computer from any other and from intranets and internets, so called air-gapping.
Sweet innocent days gone by.
Over the last five or ten years that ultimate security approach, a literal air-gap surrounding the target computer, has been beaten with at least a half-dozen different approaches.
So the advice in the piece below is already behind the times if the polling place is relaying voting numbers over the internet but at least it is a start.
Seriously, we used to say the only secure computer was one not connected to the internet, ha!
Lifted in toto from the journal Nature, September 6
No Internet technology is safe, secure or reliable for voting, find the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Paper ballots that can be tallied by hand are the most secure way to conduct an election, according to a report from the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
The report, released on 6 September, calls for all US elections to be conducted using such ballots by the 2020 presidential election. It comes after US intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government backed attempts to infiltrate the United States’s election infrastructure during the 2016 presidential election. The report’s recommendations were developed by a committee whose members had experience ranging from computer science to officiating elections.
“The future of voting is one in which a clear tension must be managed,” wrote committee co-chairs Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University in New York City, and Michael McRobbie, president of Indiana University in Bloomington. “We must prevent bad actors from corrupting our electoral process while delivering the means to provide suffrage to an electorate that is growing in size and complexity.”
For now, that means eschewing voting systems connected to the Internet until “robust guarantees of security and verifiability” are in place, the committee concluded.
The report says it is safe to countthat paper ballots with a machine using an optical scanner, but the analysis also stipulates that recounts and audits should be conducted by hand. It also recommends the immediate removal of voting machines that do not allow manual auditing.
Here's the National Academies Press report:doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-06611-x
Securing the VoteAnd for that enthusiastic young CryptoBro pitching you on blockchain, tell them to read Chapter 5 and get back to you.
Protecting American Democracy (2018)
(160 page PDF)
Here's a keyword search result page for blockchain:
35 matches found for blockchain in 5 Ensuring the Integrity of Elections
At the top of
page 104...
... While the notion of using a blockchain as an immutable ballot box may...
At the top of
page 104...
...seem promising, blockchain technology does little to solve the fundamental...
At the top of
page 104...
...security issues of elections, and indeed, blockchains introduce additional...
At the top of
page 104...
... Blockchains are decentralized, but elections are inherently centralized....
At the top of
page 104...
...Although blockchains can be effective for decentralized applications, pub-...
In the middle of
page 104...
... Ballots stored on a blockchain are electronic. While paper ballots are...
In the middle of
page 104...
...blockchain. If such software is corrupted, then verifiability may be illusory....
In the middle of
page 104...
...on a blockchain: as ballots are represented electronically, software inde-...
In the middle of
page 104...
... The blockchain abstraction, once implemented, provides added points...
In the middle of
page 104...
...of attack for malicious actors. For example, blockchain “miners” or...
In the middle of
page 104...
...fusion and uncertainty about the state of a blockchain by raising doubts...
At the top of
page 105...
... Blockchains do not provide the anonymity often ascribed to them.33 In...
At the top of
page 105...
...Blockchains do not offer means for providing the necessary authorization....
At the top of
page 105...
... Blockchains do not provide ballot secrecy. If a blockchain is used, then...
At the top of
page 105...
...cryptographic tools for this, ordinary blockchain methods do not....
At the top of
page 105...
...addressing the security issues associated with blockchains through the use...
At the top of
page 105...
...additional mechanisms, not with the use of blockchains....
In the middle of
page 105...
... bitcoin and its associated blockchain ledger. Count Ten of the indictment (Conspiracy to...
In the middle of
page 105...
... Launder Money) details how “the Conspirators” used bitcoin and its blockchain ledger in...
In the middle of
page 105...
... ment“ and how their use of bitcoin, despite the “perceived anonymity” of blockchains, was...
At the top of
page 106...
... The use of blockchains in an election scenario would do little to address...
In the middle of
page 106...
...security contributions offered by blockchains are better obtained by other...
In the middle of
page 106...
...means. In the particular case of Internet voting, blockchain methods do not... 
