By using just the information that would be available to anyone who bought or stole a voting machine, the researchers addressed a common criticism made against voting security researchers: that they enjoy unrealistic access to the systems they study.

'Based on our understanding of security and computer technology, it looks like paper-based elections are the way to go. Probably the best approach would involve fast optical scanners reading paper ballots. These kinds of paper-based systems are amenable to statistical audits, which is something the election security research community is shifting to,' said Shacham.

'You can actually run a modern and efficient election on paper,' he said.

'If you are using electronic voting machines, you need to have a separate paper record at the very least,' he added.

There findings were presented at the 2009 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop.