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There's a world of difference between the confidence you have in a system that has been designed for you, but which keeps you at is periphery; and one that you actually participate in.

France has remained stubbornly old-fashioned in the design of its electoral system. It's paper ballots all over - although there have been proposals, even plans for a live test, of an electronic system.

I was a non-voter for many years - I was too young by a few months to vote in 1988, which with the impatience of that age I found galling, and afterwards left me with the impression that politics would take care of itself without my involvement. I took it up again about ten years later.

The first time I showed up to vote it was in the nearby school, my precinct's polling place, and incidentally where my first son would soon be going to school. I had my first encounter with the people manning the ballot box, whom in later years I would get used to seeing there at every election - they gradually became permanently associated with elections in my mind. And this first time, they asked me this: "Would you like to come around and give us a hand after polls close ?"

I turned to my wife, bemused - I wanted to check if it was OK, she would have to take care of the baby - also I had no idea what I was expected or supposed to do. She nodded "Sure, go ahead", and I accepted without much knowing what I was accepting.

Later I counted votes. That's how the system currently works here - votes are counted by volunteers, usually selected amount younger people. It's a well- organized system. Tables of four people were assigned several batches of a hundred envelopes; two out of the four to open envelopes and read out loud the vote, two to write down check marks on ruled paper and write down tallies, cross- checking each other's tallies at the end. All four of us signed the tally sheet, which was then sealed as a valid count of votes.

It's interesting, in the light of my experience with this sytem, to consider the post-U.S. election news - candidates asking for a recount, discussions abuzz with rumors of fraud due to compromised e-voting machines, and so on. We've had elections that were close (the 1974 presidential race was decided by a margin of barely 1%, less than half a million votes) but I don't recall that fraud was ever an issue. I'm pretty sure that the widespread practice of having the voters "use" the counting system in that particular way changes how people handle defeat (or victory) here.

And the comparison certainly gives me no great desire to see e-voting systems deployed here.