There is a lot of evidence that voting machines can be hacked. Just google it. There is a suspicion that elections have been stolen. Our country needs to have faith in elections, so now that we know that many of the machines we use are insecure, let us replace the machines with machines which our best expertise says cannot be hacked.
Open source software would be a start.
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Open source software would be an improvement, but it doesn't guarantee a secure vote, nor is it absolutely necessary. What is needed is a voter-verifiable paper ballot printed by the voting machine, and (in my opinion) the paper ballots should be counted every time, not just for random districts or close elections.
Paper Ballot Requirement: The use of paperless voting machines will henceforth be disallowed for presidential and congressional elections in all states. Paper ballot provides a concrete record of voter will and intent. The use of voting machines should never be allowed in any state; there will always be a will to defraud and whenever there is a will there is a way.
Provisional ballots should count as a vote. Modern election fraud is about throwing out votes and provisional ballots are generally not counted as a vote.
Election Day should be on a weekend. Voting should be mandatory with fines for not voting. The fine should not be steep but should encourage turn out. Business must allow workers to vote with punitive fines should they not allow workers to vote. Election Day should be reconsidered as more than one day, for instance, Saturday and Sunday. Make election days into holidays.
Institute an online voting system with Real ID as validation device. This would allow people to see that their vote was counted along with individual voting history.
This year I sent in an absentee ballot about four weeks prior to November 4, 2008 election day. I have no way of knowing if my vote was counted or if any absentee ballot was counted. The nature of clouding election committee ballot counts must become more transparent and uniform.