What kills me about the whole electronic voting machine unreliability fiasco is that all this money spent on secret, proprietary software is that voting machines are basically small ATM or cash register level devices required to perform the most basic computer task of all: tallying.
Sure there's the touch screen and graphics elements, but those have been around for years and proven reliable enough for your neighborhood banks and casinos. So the whole secretive complexity and unreliability of the machines is nonsense.
Plus, why are they not standardized and produced by a single public agency (as driver licenses are) rather than privately owned corporations? We don't let private companies print currency, so why should we let them print votes?
A more general question is why do we need them at all?
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