[EM] Voting Machines

[LAYTON Craig]

I'm at a loss as to why you would bother with voting machines at all.
What's wrong with hand written, hand counted ballots?  I'm not sure how this
compares to US figures, but the last Australian Federal election had an
informal vote of 3.78%.  That is, 3.78% of votes cast were not counted,
because they were blank, were illegible, or didn't qualify in some other
way.  This is despite the compulsory numbering of all candidates, hand
written ballots and compulsory voting, which means that less educated voters
turn up in higher numbers (94.99% of registered voters voted in the last
election).  The problems with the hand counting in Florida stemmed from the
fact that the voting was done with a voting machine.  Voters should be given
more credit - it is usually pretty easy to tell with a hand written ballot
how the voter intended voting.  I guess I'm an abacus & gas lamp kind of
guy, so it just seems like a waste of money to me.