From article: " In the 20-plus years that these machines have been used, in many counties all across the country, there has never been a verified case of tampering."
And after two more years, there still has never been a verified case of tampering.
That's a good track record.
It is pretty clear from reading John Lott's article that, while well intentioned, he is not writing of his own knowledge on the computer issues described. He was not particularly well advised (or did not convey the subtleties well.) It sounds like he read a brochure or talked to a company flack.
To be fair, many of the vulnerabilities that are well known now have been discovered since this article was published more than two years ago, but the use of PCMCIA cards with no protection whatever (not CDRs, which would only require slight of hand to substitute) in the Diebold systems was ignored.