I often say that election security is by far the hardest technical problem I've ever encountered. Why? Four reasons:

1) Contradictory critical requirements, particularly vote secrecy vs. transparency.

2) No truly neutral trusted third parties.

3) Election do-overs are generally impossible, so the ability to merely detect problems is insufficient. You have to reliably prevent them.

4) Much of the technology than can manage the complexity of elections is inherently untrustworthy.

There are a few other problems out there that have *some* of these difficult properties, but elections seem to be almost unique in having all of them.

Add to that the high stakes and sophisticated state actors that are part of the threat model, and it can get really exciting.

I know you’ve thought about this for all of the 15 minutes required to qualify as an Official Internet Expert and all, but seriously, real-world election security isn’t simple, easy, or obvious.
@mattblaze Are you speaking of Defense or Attack?