Your Vote is a Watermelon
Imagine you went to the grocery store and you bought a watermelon. Have you ever opened up one of those things and found the inside all spidery web like? Or maybe it’s white when it’s supposed to be red? Yeah … so you were thinking in the back of your mind that you might have to return it.
Assuming the store has a reasonable return policy, you probably need to bring your receipt in order to get a refund or an exchange. You would never expect to be able to remedy your purchase without that receipt.
The same thing goes for voting. When you vote, you are provisionally accepting the results as you understand them at the time of your vote, but you shouldn’t finally accept the vote until you can verify it was cast and counted properly. Just like you verified your watermelon. If the watermelon is no good, you need to grab your receipt and return it. If the vote is no good (inaccurate or not counted properly), then you need to grab your receipt and get it remedied (adjudicated).
Oh … you mean you didn’t get a receipt? Why not? Well, that’s on you.
It’s on all of us to demand a receipt when we vote
The [Vote Tracking Number - VTN] points to your receipt, the Cast Vote Record. With EIP, it's a part of that record.
Think of your Vote as a Bank Statement Debit Transaction - a Purchase
Whether you actually see it or not, every purchase you make has a transaction number – that is it’s logical token or tracking number
Later on when you get home, you compare your purchase / receipt with the (debit) transaction on your bank statement
If there is a discrepancy, you resolve (adjudicate) it
You don’t care what systems were used to process that transaction
How the transaction got there is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT
The quality of, or even the security of the systems used to produce the transaction is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MACHINES !!!
EIP doesn't require machines to provide something they simply cannot provide because it doesn't remove human oversight from the process, nor attempt to fully replace human participation with machines. Instead, it primarily uses machines for what they are good at - calculating results. Machines are not a concern because ...
Only the outcome matters
So if you can locate your bank transaction on your bank statement and it matches your receipt, then you are good to go.
Likewise, if you can locate your vote on a tally sheet along with every other voter, they all match and the totals do as well, then we have a real election.
That's what EIP provides.