That goes for newspapers, laws and, pertinent to a matter now before the Utah Legislature, ballots.

The supply of brave new world information technology and the demand of a nation spooked by the Florida election fiasco of 2000 have converged to create a market for new ways of casting and counting ballots.

Something that is at once the flashiest and the most familiar of the new voting methods is technology similar to the kind that powers automatic teller machines. Using buttons or touch screens in the same way a bank customer can choose deposits or withdrawals, new voting machines can allow citizens to easily choose Democrat or Republican, yes or no.

It is a technology with much promise that can - if properly programmed, maintained and operated - forever do away with hanging chads, butterfly ballots, suspicious undervotes and other sins that paper - whether marked, punched or scanned - is heir to.

Such machines can be programmed to present each voter with a brightly legible slate of candidates and questions, prompt them through the process, gently point out such errors as voting for two candidates in the one race and record each vote in a way that can be counted instantly and stored forever.

Still, the idea that the computer - and only the computer - would know all the votes cast is rightly disconcerting to many. That's why a bill sponsored by Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland, deserved the approval it received Tuesday from a House committee, and should become law.

His House Bill 211 would require the state to use machines that provide a tangible paper trail - perhaps just a long version of an ATM receipt - that can be checked by each voter before she leaves the voting booth and, in the case of any challenge, provide the raw material of a good old-fashioned recount.

Chances are that computerized voting will be no less accurate than any other method. And, especially if each machine has its own storage instead of relying on a hackable Internet server, the method is not particularly prone to fraud.

But, without a paper trail, the few errors or frauds that do occur will be much more difficult to detect or review. Merely calling up the same computer file you called up election night to answer a challenge hours or days later won't make doubters believe. It's more likely to make the believers doubt.

And, unless we believe, democracy won't work.