> By sphere of influence I mean payroll and permission to operate.

But that's te thing, everyone and every organisation needs permission from the government to operate. Even you as an individual do. You have to pay taxes, you have to abide by rules and regulations, you are not allowed to purchase or operate certain substances or equipment unless you have the proper permits etc.

In terms of payroll, unless you mean that every single individual in every organisation that's in the committee are somehow being paid by the electoral court, I don't understand your point. Even in the last elections, when the administration was fiercely attacking the whole process, the auditors still came out with a positive analysis of the system. If the government had that much power over them, how come the committee didn't side with the government?

> You don't seem to understand how problematic is this idea that there are groups of people who are guaranteed to have the populations best interest in mind.

I don't think they're guaranteed to have the best interest of the population. I'm of the opinion that they have a very broad set of points of view, some widely opposed to others, and they still all come out with overall positive analyses of the system. There are proper technical people doing those analyses, and they're just regular people. They could be myself, or yourself. Which is, again, the point I was making about actually knowing someone, a regular individual, who has been part of the committee.

> you shouldn't expect everyone doing the same.

I don't. I don't expect anything from anyone. You're free to trust or distrust whomever you like.

> I am brazilian and have lived over there for a long time.

This doesn't shield you from being prejudiced against Brazilians. Surely you've heard the phrase "complexo de vira-lata" (loosely translated, for the foreign audience, "stray dog complex").

Your comment was:

That's a very classic brazilian response

This is prejudiced. Not only you completely misinterpreted my thoughts, but you then proceeded to attribute your interpretation of them to the fact that I belong to a certain group of people.

> I'm guessing you are too so you are familiar with the term "carteirada"

Surely am. That's usually when individuals use their position to get around limitations that apply to most people, as if they belong to a superior caste. I don't see how that's related to the voting autit committee.

> I verify signatures for every important software I download.

Do you verify the entire chain? Or do you trust someone to attest validity of keys at some point?

> You on the other hand is condescending

Fair point, apologies for the snark.

> Even if I don't there are tools doing this for me like package managers.

Which again are based on trust. Trust that the developers who signed the packages are in fact trustworthy. Trust that the package manager doesn't contain bugs that could make the verification process moot, or have been compromised otherwise.

> Chances are your computer boot loader and most of its applications are signed.

By a supposedly trusted entity.

I bet you also trust that Intel ME or whatever equivalent your CPU has is not doing anything malicious, or that your BIOS/UEFI system is not working against your interests in any way, right?

Have you taken a peek at your browser's trusted CAs? I bet there's scary stuff in there, and you trust them implicitly by using the browser. I'm almost certain you haven't vetted each of those CAs, and even if you did, you're still trusting that they haven't been compromised since then.

> But somehow for voting we just trust the pros?

Not just for voting, as I have hopefully demonstrated above.

> If a normal citizen cannot attest and verify for the trustworthiness of the digital election system

As opposed to how it was before? I have some scary stories to tell you about the old school paper ballot counting.

> you can't really blame the people who are calling it a sham.

I'm not blaming anyone for anything. Just pointing out that in my opinion it's wildly exagerated, and trying to demonstrate why that's how I think.

> "Don't question. Just trust the authorities" is a scar of a time where such things would put you in jail.

That's not me, I guarantee you that - and I will point out that it's again prejudiced of you to assume so.

> The idea that a normal citizen cannot interfere in government affairs

My idea actually comes from the opposite point-of-view: that the government serves the "normal citizens". The government cannot be seen as the enemy. They need to be seen as our employees, and the people need to act like such. Yes, that still means we need to push for better public auditing, for better systems, for improvements all around. We absolutely should. After all, they work for us.

> Why are you trying to convince me into trusting third parties

I'm not. :)

> we agree the best solution is to have government release the source code and let anyone audit it

That we do!

Our difference in opinion seems to be just about how good or bad the current system is.