In Alabama we use a machne made by Eagle (at least thats the logo on the machine).
But ultimately the protection is in the fact that the votes are marked with a black felt tip pen on a paper ballot. The machine is really only a scanner to simplity the counting process.
Wayne,
Using the ballots we do in Alabama, “errors” are almost nonexistent. If there is any problem, you can re-run all the ballots.
I wish every precinct in America had to use the optical scanners like we have. Just about as close to foolproof as you can get.
You are correct, and that is why in New Hampshire paper ballots are required by law, and any recount is done solely from the paper ballots by hand.
But the accuracy of the scanners and their printouts on election day still matters. How would you know to even ask for a recount if the machines miscounted? Or, as has been demonstrated for the Accuvote machines, counted correctly but printed a tape with incorrect results.
Amazingly, researchers have found that the Accuvote machines use a version of the BASIC programming language to control the print formatting of the report tape. And the version used includes arithmetic operations, branching, etc. so the code which is generating the printout of results can have operations like "vote_total_to_print = Republican_votes * .90".
Obviously that's a bad design, and a doorway to fraud.
Source at University of Connecticut Voting Technology Research Center