Hand-counting.

Population of Canada: 33 million.

Population of USA: 303 million.

Population density of Quebec: 14 people per square mile.

Population density of Florida: 111 people per square mile.

The conservatives won the election by 11% margin. In the USA 2004 elections the republicans won by 2.5% of the vote.

In the 2000 elections there was a 0.5% difference in the results. Democrates won the popular vote, the Republicans won the electoral votes. (Of course, the president was never really meant to be elected by popular vote anyways... only the electoral votes matter. The Congressional elections are the ones that people should be paying attention to, not the presidental elections)

So 10x difference in population density and 1/5 in the difference of the votes between the winner and the loser. This sort of thing really makes a huge difference.

If the Canadian elections came down to less then one percent difference then I can expect that you'll that people would be screaming bloody murder about every rumor of voter fraud. And people will be going to courts demanding recounts.. because 1%-.5% is a very very small difference.

The Canadians are dealing with elections on the same scale that the USA last seen since before the Civil War. Or on the same scale as Texas or Californian State elections.

While I like the idea of paper-only elections, in the USA elections are regulated on the county level. That is they each decide on their own what sort of election that is held. Some places do do paper-only. Some do a mixture.

For example, were I live it's mostly paper ballots. I fill out little ovals. However they will provide voting machines for disabled people.. since with electronic voting you can do things that you can't do, such as audio ballots.

Some counties in my area do hand counts. Others use central count scanners. It's all over the map, and will vary quite a bit from county to county.

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Remember that USA elections have strict privacy guidelines. It's required by law that no ballot can ever be traced back to it's voter.

This makes it exceptionally difficult to properly audit a election.

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Oh, and the machines that caused the problems in Florida were paper punch-outs. You were given a stylus and a sheet of paper and you punched little holes in it to cast your vote.

Then you could read your votes back in through a machine that felt for the holes. Very old fashioned.

Even after several HAND recounts people were still flipping out over them and calling for more and more recounts.

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Nobody has used machines like that for ages.

Nowadays in the USA elections are generally done through paper ballots. Even with electronic machines.

You have one machine with a printer and a touch screen. You touch the votes in on the touch screen and print out the results as if you filled in the ovals.

Then you take that piece of paper, walk over to were the ballots are stored and put them into a slotted container for later counting by central count scanners, or you feed them into a machine that scans in the ballots right there. Which you use depends on the county.

Then your ballot falls into a locked box and is stored there until next election in case there is any recount called. If there is a recount then you will probably will have a hand recount.

(paper ballots, when left sitting, are prone to swelling and twisting in storage since paper absorbs moisture. This makes it very difficult to read paper ballots into a machine)

And like I said most places to a mixture. You fill it out by hand and read it into a electronic scanner or if your disabled or whatever then you use the electronic machine to print ballots.

This is the style of electronic voting machines that are now popular in the USA and most places are trying to migrate to.

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The other type, the DRE, is the touch screen only. The ballots results are stored in flash media and whatnot. Then you have a attached reel printer that keeps audit information on each vote cast. The results of each vote are electronically stored in no less then 3 different devices.

These are still reasonably common, but are falling out of favor, due to the average American's paranoia about the 2000 election fiasco. They are still the preferred machines in most other countries, however.