I voted in today’s Republican Primary, and it was my first experience with Utah’s new electronic voting machines. (I used Virginia’s electronic voting machines a few years ago, and was not particularly impressed by them.)
The touch-screen ballot was clear and easy to use. After I made my selections, it confirmed them on the screen, allowing me a chance to go back and change them if I realized I’d made a mistake. (I don’t live in Palm Beach, so I hadn’t.)
Then — and this is the part I like best — it printed my votes on some paper that I could view through a window, allowing me again to confirm that my vote was being recorded properly. If I had noticed an error on the paper version, I could have cancelled that ballot and corrected my vote. Only after confirming the correctness of the paper ballot was my vote recorded.
It seems this system is well-designed to counter the problems encountered in recent elections, and the paper trail provides a nice way to confirm the vote, thus avoiding some of the conspiracy theories about stolen elections.