Ron's on this Gates/MS/Voting machine issue hard.

Have to figure any voting machine software should be a tabulator only, and the only fields necessary are non-editable office/name/party/, a vote field that could be logical (yes/no) or numerical, but, if numerical, no decimals with a max of 1, and a calculated total field that uses an addition only function to increment it automatically after reading the vote field linked to a specific candidate as the ballot is scanned.

IOW, the only thing that should change after a ballot is scanned is the total vote field for each candidate, and that would be incremented by 1 if the vote field is yes or 1.

The thing with any SQL server involvement is that it allows manipulation of the fields in the database via scripts that can be issued remotely to a database programmed to allow mathematical functions other than addition to fields that may be programmed to allow decimal places.

Gates divorce announcement timing is spoopy. My SWAG is the stories of Gates shacking up with his ex once a year is to provide cover for the divorce, which is actually for divestment purposes.