WTH?! Maine no longer has a hand counted pencil and paper ballot voting system??

My friend and I live in two tiny rural towns, and she just voted early and called me fit to be tied because she was handed an optical scan ballot to vote with, She was told all the ballots would be shipped to Augusta for counting.

I just checked the state website and sure enough the sample ballot for my own town is also optical scan. (I'm sure the bigger towns have been using machines for a long time, but I liked taking comfort in knowing my ballot was being counted by people I knew and trusted.)

I don't remember hearing anywhere in the news that the state was proposing changes. If I had known, I sure as heck would have had something to say about it!

I feel sick to my stomach. How can I ever trust that the vote tallies are correct??