In Florida in 2000, we had these old voting machines where the voter would go into the booth, hit a bunch of buttons, and submit the vote. The voting card in the back would fall. There were often errors on them via ineffective button pushes, incorrect push, last minute mind change, and it would result in dubious votes. Some votes were discarded. There is no doubt that sometimes the vote went to the wrong candidate.
During the very close presidential election of 2000, these voting machine issues clearly showed the need for electronic voting machine booths with the added feature of instant vote count.
The current problems that are appearing are temporary and fleeting. With enough time and research these problems will become obsolete and resolved.
But your point of paper ballots requiring greater participation of people is interesting. Indeed, when more people participate even in mundane and simple tasks, there is a healthy feeling that spreads among the community.
"... these voting machine issues clearly showed the need for electronic voting machine booths..."
The hanging chad fiasco showed the need for following established procedures. Those particular machines had not been cleaned for multiple years. So the holes filled up. Preventing new votes from being cast.
The problem electronic voting machines solved was the vendors were envious of dot com valuations. The HAVA pork triggered a gold rush by the vendors, juicing their revenue and stock prices and exec payouts. The gear didn't actually solve any technical problems. They weren't even "accessible", which was their primary stated purpose.
How does this show the need for e-voting? It just shows the need for decent engineering. It's silly to pretend a computer is the only solution here. You can add on instant counting, too, with a camera and slot to drop the ballot in.
During the very close presidential election of 2000, these voting machine issues clearly showed the need for electronic voting machine booths with the added feature of instant vote count.
The current problems that are appearing are temporary and fleeting. With enough time and research these problems will become obsolete and resolved.
But your point of paper ballots requiring greater participation of people is interesting. Indeed, when more people participate even in mundane and simple tasks, there is a healthy feeling that spreads among the community.