Re: Most Secure Voting Machine
@Allan George Dyer: Appropriate counting procedures make this misbehavior more difficult, but not necessarily impractical. You describe theory and, as far as I know UK practice, quite accurately. I described reasonably well documented US historical practice, where manual counting, when used, customarily is done by teams of election judges representing at least two political parties. As in the UK, the procedure may be witnessed by independent (i. e., non-official) observers. Skewing the count requires no more than the practical skills of a magician, and has not always been free of corruption.
Voter marked paper ballots clearly are the most transparent and easily understood way to record votes. Vote counting, whether by humans or machines has vulnerabilities. They can be mitigated and rendered less probable, but probably cannot be eliminated entirely and may sometimes affect the outcome of close elections.