Manual vote count for 2016? Just like taking journalism back to the Olivetti

IT sounds romantic. It taps on our Luddite urges, the rage against the machine. It hews to our worst fears—a dystopian scenario in which pre-programmed computers skew the presidential elections to favor a would be dictator-crook. Who would then plunge the country into ruin and chaos.

I am referring to the current proposal to manually count the all-too important 2016 presidential election. Or, introduce a hybrid version that would blend a manual part with an automated part. My appeal to the proponents is this: for the sake of the country and our fragile democracy, please don’t resurrect the manual count, or even a hybrid incarnation of it.