Electronic voting!

In general, the problems with the Diebold voting machines have to do with poor design and poor security. All of the machines use a central program to tabulate the results (Gems) which, as we saw in the film, can be easily tampered with by someone who knows what they are doing, bypassing even the need for an administrative password. Besides hacking Gems, a person can write an encrypted program on the memory card which hold all of the votes within the Diebold machine. The outcome of the votes can be changed without the number of voters drastically altered, so if there is no alternate reason to hand count the ballots, the adjustment will likely go completely undetected. The documentary also showed that the receipts from the machines, which the officials sign off on are not properly kept track of, nor are they consistent. It seems that the people in charge of the polls do not do all that they can to ensure proper tabulations.
I am a strong believer that this system is in great need of change. First of all, the people in charge of vote tabulation need to put speed on the back burner for a while and concentrate on accuracy as the main concern. The votes need to be tabulated by the machines as well as counted by hand. Unless all of the numbers match (or are within an EXTREMELY small percentage, to allow for human error), the votes must continue to be re-counted. I think that every voting machine should leave a paper trail. Also, I think the fact that the machines are made by a company whose CEO is quoted as saying they are committed to delivering the election to a particular candidate is utterly disturbing. I actually think this quote is a justified reason to separate the voting machines from the Diebold company completely.
If a company can make an Automatic Teller Machine that is basically un-hack-able, there is no reason why something as important as a nation's votes can not be accurately tabulated. This system needs to be re-designed, and this must happen as soon as possible.