I'm a poll worker so I have some experience with the problem. I agree with you that a peripheral is one more thing that can break or be tampered with, and I wou

I'm a poll worker so I have some experience with the problem. I agree with you that a peripheral is one more thing that can break or be tampered with, and I wouldn't recommend a mouse. Here's what I've observed (at least in the iVotronic systems we use in Pennsylvania): - since there's only one screen, and it's all touchscreen, users get consistently confused between pictures of buttons describing what the buttons do and the buttons themselves - the touchscreen is itself a peripheral and prone to wearing out. When it does, the fact it's wearing out is difficult to observe during the election day; there's no cursor indicator, so a poll worker can't check calibration. - users with fine-motor-coordination issues have to brace against the box to steady themselves to touch the tiny targets they want. There's nowhere to brace against a touchscreen that isn't also touch-sensitive input, and the screens don't accept multi-touch. A row of buttons along each side of the screen, not unlike the solution used at many ATMs, would ameliorate all these problems. These boxes are already custom hardware jobs, so switching out touchscreens for a couple of button banks would be cheaper, equally usable for most voters, and more usable for mobility-impaired voters. It would improve all three observed problems. Wishes and horses though; the machines we have are the ones we use.