My jurisdiction in Canada uses an OCR machine on a paper ballot. The paper ballot is the official record and recounts are done by hand. Seems to be the obvious way to do things.
I think the main thing is that we have one federal, one provincial, and one municipal election per 4ish years (give or take…). And these are generally voting for one race.
American elections can have dozens of different races/questions. This causes them to depend on technology to count, as a full hand count is too impractical for that many different votes.
Several states use Scantron, and a few jurisdictions (IIRC) still use punch ballot.
The state of Georgia uses these modern "digitally select, then print a ballot with QR code and legible names" ballots. They're great and feel optimal.
I understand why we don't do that - it would enable people to pay for votes with confidence, or to influence the votes of others via intimidation - but it would certainly make me feel better.
When they count your vote later, they have a high-speed system that can scan all the QR codes almost instantly. It's why we know the results in as little as an hour.
If there are any questions, or if the race is tight, a team of auditors can look at the ballot pages to check for any discrepancies. They'll check to make sure the machines themselves weren't tampered with by checking that the printed names and other ballot initiatives match the QR codes.