I read recently that in the primaries, and during the absentee balloting that preceded the elections, touchscreen voting machines proved to have serious problems, frequently failing to properly record and tally votes. Over the past six years or so I've read all manner of experts weigh in on this subject, and haven't yet read one who has pointed out what I think is obvious to readers of this blog (and anyone competent to read any blog): We're talking about an awesomely simple programming task. Here's what it takes:

* A table listing the candidates, the office for which they are candidates, and their party affiliations, which can be downloaded into a server located in each polling place.

* A cheap web server in each polling place that stores the candidate table and renders it into a ballot.

* Voting machines equipped with browsers, touchscreens, and printers.

* A program that runs in the server that records the results for each voter into a votes table that can be uploaded when the polls close, and that prints out a "receipt" for each voter, to verify their vote and to be used in a manual recount should one be needed.