Computers, voting machines, paper ballots - Preferences?

[notherbob]

I used to favor the machines and computers because of the faster counting but due to hanging chads and other irregularities in the recent elections, I have decided to vote only on paper ballots that have to be counted in front of witnesses from both parties.

Some old commie once said that it is not the voters who choose the winner, it is those who count the votes (and doesn't count the dimples and hanging chads, etc.) that determine the winner. Of course the modern translation is that it is not the computer user who determines what the computer does, it is the one who programs the computer. At least with paper ballots, there's a paper trail, literally even though they can be replaced by stuffed ballot boxes, or subjected to the same kind of Filtering such as disallowing votes that have any smudge outside the box, etc.

Voting and vote counting should be clean but then politicians shouldn't be engaging in influence and accepting bribes, but they all do. Hell, if it weren't for special interests, influence peddling and bribery, no laws would get passed. Is that always a bad thing?