Academy
Foundations
How an election actually works, step by step — from marking a ballot to certifying a national result, and the checks that catch errors along the way.
Interference is not fraud: the five categories
Why an attacked election and a falsified one are different things — and how to tell them apart.
How votes are counted and verified
From a single polling station to a certified national result — and the checks that catch errors along the way.
What happens to your ballot after you cast it
The chain of custody that guards a ballot from the moment you cast it to the moment it is counted — the seals, logs, and reconciliations that make tampering visible.
Frequently asked questions
How are votes actually counted?
A national result is built from the bottom up: each polling station counts its ballots in front of observers and records a signed protocol, those totals are aggregated upward, and audits or recounts check the count against the paper record. It is a chain of observable steps, not one hidden moment.
Can voting machines be hacked without anyone noticing?
Where every vote leaves a paper record, no — the machines can be checked against the paper by a recount or a risk-limiting audit. The paper trail is precisely what makes undetectable machine manipulation implausible in systems that keep one.
What is the difference between a recount and an audit?
A recount re-tallies ballots, usually after a close margin or a formal request. An audit hand-checks a statistical sample of paper ballots to confirm the reported winner without counting everything. Both depend on a paper record that exists independently of any computer.