Quote Originally Posted by Elrond
It's not like the US where every state can have its own system, some not being very intuitive, and some being error prone. Plus it makes it difficult to recount sometimes. It is kind of a big mess. I think like for something as important than the presidential election, the system should be much more simple, leaving no space for mistakes.
Guess what - it actually varies by county what a mess! Although I think it is incorrect to say that these are not intuitive, there are just a few people who don't take the time to actually read the ballot before voting.

(Here's the infamous "butterfly ballot" from 2000
[img=http://school.newsweek.com/extras/images/butterfly_ballot.jpg]

Recounting is a mess as you say, because of the inconsistent systems.

The last time I voted, the machine I used was a little pushboard thing where you pressed buttons for candidates and little lights illuminated, then I pressed 'accept' or something like that to make it official, and it was electronically processed. Very convenient. The only problem with this method is that one of the companies that made these devices for use in Ohio promised to deliver the state to Bush in 2004... I think that is highly unethical and absurd, but it happened.