In my locale, you mark a paper ballot by hand, and it goes into a somewhat antiquated electronic scanner. The scanner is attached to a locked box that stores the ballots. That seems like a reasonable approach.

When I was a kid, I remember going with my mom when she voted. The mechanical voting machine created this roll of paper with everybody's vote marked on it. After the poll closed, they took out the rolls and laid them out down the hallway of the school where the polling occurred. Anybody was welcome to stay and watch while the poll workers checked the tallies.