Voting machines

The first all mechanical voting machines were introduced in the 1930's.  At that time it was thought that the machines would reduce scams like ballot box stuffing.  And the machines counted up the votes and displayed the sums on the back of the machine, so vote tallies were available as soon as the polls closed, and the poll workers didn't have to know how to add, subtract or count.  Lotta places bought them, and they lasted for decades.  I never heard of anyone trying to hack one.  Tools were needed just to get the covers off, and under the covers the maze of little whirring moving parts defied all but the most skilled and trained mechanics. 
    After decades of service, the mechanical machines started to wear out, and the manufacturers had gone the way of the buggy whip makers.   As cities and towns looked around for replacements,  because after voting on machines, going back to paper ballots seemed primative, and a horde of eager beaver vendors (Diebold!) were offering electronic voting machines.  These gadgets are basically low end desktop computers.   A program displays the candidates names to voters and records the touches they use to vote.  Groovy.  But these voting machines have all the weaknesses of Windows computers.  Anyone with access to the machines, before or after the election, can change the programming to help his party.  And this scam is undetectable.  They is no paper trail.  The machine's program is unreadable.  With the old fashioned paper ballot, the ballots were saved, and could be recounted in case of challenge.  
    We ought to go back to paper ballots.  Up here in NH, we still use them.  Works fine.  If counting all the ballots in a big city is too much work, buy ballot reading machines.  They work like the test scoring machines used in school and if the machine score is challenged, the paper ballots are still available to be hand counted.