Still confused?
That's understandable, it’s a lot to take in even though it’s a fairly simple concept. Let’s put it like this:
It’s all about the Ballot Audit Mark (BAM)
After you vote, you need to be able to verify your ballot to make sure it was counted correctly. So you need to be able to locate your completed marked ballot because ...
You can't verify a ballot you can't find!
That is the problem with all voting protocols today, whether they are counted by hand or by machine.
So whether you use paper or machines, you can find your ballot if every ballot is marked using a unique vote tracking number (BAM / token) known to the voter. If you use paper, you could conceivably go find your ballot if they were all sorted, but that doesn’t scale very well. That’s why we optionally add machines to the mix and allow for electronic ballots and scanning of paper ballots. For paper ballots, we recommend scanning the ballots via an EIP-Audit. You can use either one as long as a BAM is attached to the ballot.
The entire point is to make the ballot auditable.
Hope that helps