> software voting machines are actually better against accidents than the paper machines they replace. ... It ignores the solution, which isn't to fix software

> software voting machines are actually better against accidents than the paper machines they replace. ... It ignores the solution, which isn't to fix software bugs, but to provide an independent, auditable paper trail. XKCD is not an essay, where this may in fact be the ultimate belief of the comic, there’s only so much space in a comic. The comic is right that this implementation is bad, and the quote above agrees, it’s the paper audit trail that’s the fix. I actually agree that software could, emphasis on could, make the voting system better by simplifying the interface to the ballot. For example, in San Francisco we have ranked choice voting, this creates a complex ballot, I think it’s a better system than winner take all balloting. This creates a complex voter form, though. A good UI/UX on a computer could make this simpler and less error prone, but it should be backed up by a paper ballot. Paper ballots can’t be as easily hacked, and require larger orders of corruption to pull off. Not just a single hacker getting in and changing some numbers, but a group of people working together to change the paper record. This makes them important for auditing an election's results. That being said, are computers in this context worth the cost, that can probably be determined by the error rate of paper ballots.