Why are voting machines used?

Answer 1

One concern is the assumption that it's much easier for a crooked election worker who knows how to access the data to manipulate the digital election records than to altar a large stack of paper ballots. A second concern is that the voting "machines" could be preprogrammed to default to a particular party, which was an actual complaint from several people at at least one location in 2012. A less commonly heard concern is that the use of electronic equipment might scare off some who would otherwise gladly vote on paper given the opportunity (perhaps some elderly who have never used any type of electronic communications medium).

Answer 2

In 2012, there were a few concerns around voting machines:

1. Security flaws (researchers have found ways to hack the machines to swap votes between candidates)
2. Election officials have no way to conduct an audit to see whether votes were counted correctly
3. Researchers found Mitt Romney family investment ties to the voting machine company
   

Answer 3

To minimize vote-counting errors, To speed up the voting process, and To reduce the number of persons needed to administer elections.