>The advantage of the "machine" was that within a few minutes of the polls closing the election results would be known.
>

>With the paper system, San Francisco, like Florida, is still counting votes.

As an indiviual with an accounting background, the paper system seems to have the following merit: a paper trail. I placed my ballot into a scanner when I walked out of the room.

>Concern for interfering with any system is justifiable as any system can be tampered with be it mechanical, paper or electronic.
>

How do the machines work? Is there some sort of permanent record detailing every vote, with time stamps, booth number, etc.? Does anyone here know about this?

Counting 100,000,000 votes in several hours (the first count, anyway). Quite an example of distributed processing :)