Elections & terms
voting system
The equipment and software used to mark, cast, and count ballots. Most American voters now use a system that produces a paper record.
In full
Common systems include hand-marked paper ballots read by an optical scanner and ballot-marking devices that print a marked ballot. Paperless machines have largely been retired because they leave nothing to audit. Certification, logic and accuracy testing before each election, and post-election audits are the layered checks on whether a system counted correctly.
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A plain-language explanation for civic education, not legal advice. When in doubt, the official source named above controls.