Random election mechanics thought

The first post-election edition of the RISKS digest had remarkably little to say: there was an article that mostly just summarized things that have been reported widely through my livejournal friends list and an article about the New York Times' "voters' rights" article. This made me think a little about the local system, though. In Somerville I walk into the polling place, give them my name and street address (but no ID), and get marked off the list. I fill in a paper ballot, get marked off a second list, and feed it through a machine. I can entirely envision how the machine works, and could probably build my own with a lot of effort and some repressed memories from 6.270. If it breaks, there's still this big bin of ballots that we can go back and hand-count later.

This system works. The ballot is clear, the mechanic is obvious, there's no pesky uncertified software or "smart cards", you can double-check that the automation works. It's not shiny -- but a stable democracy isn't really about shiny, it demands confidence in a voting system, which from what I've seen the shiny just doesn't give.