The more ad hoc the process, the greater the opportunities for mischief and honest mistakes. If you don’t think paper ballots cannot be tampered with, you are living in a fantasy world.
I grew up in New York City, where voting was done by mechanical tabulating machines for years, basically adding machines. The voter would set levers indicating his or her preferences. The opening the curtain to the voting booth would tabulate the votes and reset the levers. I do not recall anyone ever questioning the accuracy or reliability of this method. The machines would be locked down after the polls closed and the talleys recorded. It seems almost fool proof to me.
Probably why NYS is getting rid of the lever machines.
Our local Board of Election just informed us of this happy news.
I well remember those (NYC) machines (some are still in use)One recurring problem with these machines was countless instances that when the voting started at 6am in the morning many of the machines, instead of starting from zero, had votes already tabulated for one candidate or another