Computer scientists slam e-voting machines

The world's oldest professional society of computer scientists on Monday took aim at electronic voting machines, recommending they not be used in elections unless they provide a physical paper trail. In a new position statement, the Association for Computing Machinery said that "voting systems should enable each voter to inspect a physical record to verify that his or her vote has been accurately cast and to serve as an independent check on the result produced and stored by the system."

Accidental bugs or intentional malicious code in e-voting machines could theoretically alter an election's results. ACM said that a paper trail will provide a way to double-check what's happening inside machines from companies such as Diebold Election Systems and Sequoia Voting Systems--a feat that would not otherwise be possible. Such systems are expected to be used by tens of millions of voters in the Nov. 2 U.S. election.

Confused by This

I can't understand the disagreements computer scientists have with electronic voting systems. I understand that electronic votes can not be counted, but what are atomic database transactions for in the first place. Banks are able to keep tallys of funds without losing track, why not computerization for voting?

[OscarWeb]

They are not disagreeing.

These computer scientists are not disagreeing with electronic voting machines. They are merely stating a well-known fact. There must be an option of having a printed record so that votes CAN be recounted if necessary and so that a person can make sure that the system recorded their vote as they intended. Banks maintain a paper trail for their transactions, and automated teller machines issue printed records of their transactions. It's the same principle.