Re:What was the problem (Score 1)

My european experiences being English, I can tell you a bit about the UK situation: there are a handful of constituencies which vie to be the first out with a result come general election night. The winner of this race usually takes about 20 minutes to tally 20,000 or so votes (note this includes transporting the ballot boxes from polling stations to counting areas). The last constituency results usually come in late the next day (usually the Hebridies and other large ones in Scotland), or after a few days if there have to be some recounts.

UK general elections are "which of these people do you want to be your MP?" plus "which of these people do you want on your local council" and that's it unless you've got a Mayor as well. In the USA IME, it's president (half the time)/representative/senator (2/3 the time)/a judge or two/measures A,C,D/propositions 81 through 89. Plus there are some districts that are a lot more geographically dispersed, so I'll give us that, but basically there's typically maybe 5x the number of things to vote on than in the UK, so it still ought to take not much more than a week to have everything counted by hand.

But here's the kicker for me though: in the UK, a new government typically takes office the very next day. In the US - at least at the federal level - there is over two months to get everything counted and recounted where necessary. There is simply no requirement beyond satisfying impatience to be able to count at even 1/10th the speed of the UK, and thus no need to introduce machines that are hard-of-counting, depending upon who you want to vote for and whose company built it.