Like many jurisdictions around the state and nation, Allegheny County is trying to make the best of a bad lot, thanks to a federal law. In 2002, spurred by a dysfunctional presidential election in Florida, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, which set nationwide standards for voting machines in the hope of preventing another fiasco.

The problem for Americans in places like Allegheny County is that they didn't need help to vote -- the mechanical voting machines used here for the past four decades are reliable. This fiasco is compounded by the fact that Pennsylvania has been slow to certify the electronic machines that will replace them.

At least the federal government is providing funds to do the job -- in Allegheny County's case some $12 million. But failure to meet this year's deadline could mean loss of those funds and fines as well. With little time to spare, the county Board of Elections voted 2-1 this week to buy 2,800 electronic voting machines from a California-based firm, Sequoia Voting Systems Inc.

In these unreasonable circumstances, we think the county and its chief executive, Dan Onorato, have made a reasonable choice. The price of $11.8 million is covered by the federal money. The Sequoia computer screen is "full face," which will allow voters to see the whole ballot displayed. Of all the electronic systems considered by the county, this most resembles the appearance of the mechanical system voters are used to, no small thing in a county with many elderly residents. Moreover, county officials say Sequoia machines have an extended record of reliable use in populous Montgomery County.

That said, this decision takes a bit of a chance, because the Sequoia machines still need to be certified by the state. But if this is not done (and county officials are confident that it will be), the same company can provide another system that has already been certified.

The Sequoia machines can be upgraded at a cost of $2.2 million to include a paper trail of a person's vote. We wish that could be done, but both the state constitution and state law require votes to be kept private. The upgraded Sequoia machines would record votes on paper by a "cut and drop" method, not on a continuous roll that might be used to reveal voter identities, but these machines still haven't passed muster.

The lack of a paper trail has moved some voting activists to favor an optical scan system, which employs paper ballots filled in by voters. Their concerns are not without merit -- rigging elections has a sordid history in the United States -- but their fears also have a computer distrust aspect to them.

After all, they are asking for proof that is not now available with the mechanical machines. Further, it is ironic that their preferred remedy for more Florida debacles would turn out to be voters marking paper ballots -- an echo of what caused the problem in the first place.

Americans trust computers for life-and-death functions every day, and it seems to us that paper ballots run through a scanner are not how most Americans will vote as the 21st century advances. For one thing, the cost of printing up hundreds of thousands of ballots every election would prove expensive over the long haul.

Earlier this week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard arguments in a suit brought by voters in Westmoreland County -- and Sen. Jim Ferlo, the Democrat from Highland Park -- who insisted that a referendum is needed to change voting systems. Yesterday, without issuing an opinion, the Supreme Court overturned a Commonwealth Court ruling favoring the voters' suit. In allowing electronic machines to be purchased without a poll, the court removed a huge uncertainty but left one legal question hanging.

It would be a great service to the commonwealth if the Supreme Court could also clarify the legal privacy question that currently bars paper trails in electronic machines -- a hope expressed by Mr. Onorato. For our part, we don't suspect a conspiracy to disenfranchise voters, but if the trust level can be raised for electronic machines, so much the better.