It was an excuse for state legislators to give out no-bid contracts to companies they own stock in. It's that simple. That's the only reason they exist.

Some places, all the places I've been, give you the option. The machines are typically for people with bad vision because it makes everything easier to see. At the end of the day the machine just prints to the bubble sheet anyway and then that sheet is read by another machine.

It worked fine here too until people realized it was another avenue for crooked income. The machines I once worked on stored data to pcmcia media. They worked fine. They didn't need to replace them, but they did anyhow. Because money.