Hacking the Electoral Law

Public control and transparency of elections, not trust, are well established principles to prevent electoral fraud in a democracy. With the introduction of voting computers or remote eVoting, this transparency is replaced by procedures which exclude both voters and the public from any control over the election process. Instead, trust in the administration is introduced as a new principle of electoral control. But what might be desirable for an authoritarian regime is inappropriate in a democracy. Using German eVoting regulations as an example, it is discussed how experts in the administration "hack" the electoral system by turning fundamental election principals into their opposite.