We have serious threats to election integrity that must be fixed before the next election.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Yes. there should be a paper trail, but to condemn all machines for the sins of a few is silly...

Here in NY we have several choices, and my county picked a ballot scanner. By law, we also have to have a ballot "writer" for the handicapped, fully equipped for anyone who can't see or write easily. I've been working every election since it was first bought, and haven't seen it used once. I've also been through several recounts, and with a dozen eagle-eyed lawyers from each side watching the recounts, there just hasn't been any machine error or fraud. Missing absentee ballots, affidavit ballots... problems there, but nothing to do with the machines.

I've also been to elections where some tiny party managed to get enough signatures for a primary and the machines were set up with 6 election judges and the support staff out all day for the three voters who actually showed up. And don't get me started on the major party and office primaries set up for different dates...

So, we do overuse resources as it is. But with people saying how important voting is, just what constitutes waste?

And, counting votes is not really different than counting cash. Counting is counting and is what computers excel at. Actually, all they do is count things, with the counting becoming more and more complicated with advanced applications. And security is still security. Putting voting machines on a network does add risk, and is probably not worth the security for ATMs, but, unlike ATMs, there is no need to put them on a network.