The ballot-counting
equipment is part of a
broader redesign of Los
Angeles County’s voting
system, which will include
new equipment while relying
on a traditional paper ballot.
They have been asking for suggested areas for "Voting Centers" recently where LA County citizens can vote at the location of their choosing. Many people here have long commutes from traffic or public transport. For this reason (and maybe others) the County wants to make it so people can vote at any of the available "vote centers", rather than one assigned polling location by their home.
You can watch the video that they were sending around here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC_-8Nl-O3U
Also, you get to examine the actual ballot before casting your vote, even if you don’t fill it out with a pencil.
For example, in a 2017 election for a seat of the Virginia House which would have switched party control, an election recount came up one vote in favor of the Democrat, but then GOP officials declared that a (clearly spoiled under any reasonable interpretation of the official rules for counting) ballot should count for the GOP candidate, making the vote a tie. Another GOP official then decided the contest in the GOP candidate’s favor by drawing his name from a hat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_House_of_Delegates_el...
I wish election results came with a margin of error calculation, because too many people assume that a vote result is 100% accurate. Especially to justify the result of a winner-take-all election.