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McCloy, however, counters that cases such as Carteret County, though it used a different brand of machine, still demonstrate that touch-screen technology can fail to record votes electronically. The Cartaret machine not only was misprogrammed, but local election officials ignored a warning indicator.

"If we're going to have a hotly contested race and we're going to have to go through the touch-screen counties," McCloy said, "we're going to have a problem."

Seeking votes of confidence

Ohio's secretary of state released a report in December recommending the elimination of touch-screen machines because of concerns about their reliability. Florida is shifting to optical scan machines.

N.C. elections officials caution, though, that paper ballots are easier to damage, incorrectly cast or corrupt.

Gary Bartlett, executive director of the N.C. State Board of Elections, said the state's experience is that optical scan machines indicate more discrepancies between the electronic and paper vote totals than touch-screen machines.

He said board officials believe in independent verification of how a vote is cast on a touch-screen machine and recognize that it's essential to securing voters' faith in the system.

"Today it is paper," Bartlett said. "Hopefully technology will solve issues surrounding paper where an alternative choice could be used, or a better paper solution."

Elections officials also randomly select machines and compare electronic and paper vote counts to ensure accuracy.

Bartlett's staff has worked to reduce the paper jams. The machine's manufacturer has retooled the printing function so it uses less paper per voter. That means fewer roll changes and fewer jams. Counties also are using different paper that is less affected by humidity.

State elections officials are asking the company to revamp the printers further so they show only a summary of the voter's choices at the end instead of each choice as the voter goes through the ballot.

"It's like anything else: The more you work with it, the better you get at it," said Keith Long, voting systems project manager for the state board of elections.

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