Little Hawk, you're absolutely right!

It should not be necessary to prove that someone DID tamper with the electronic vote count. The point is that if cheating of this magnitude CAN occur and be difficult or impossible to detect, THERE'S SOMETHING HORRIBLY WRONG WITH THE PROCESS.

No voter should be disenfranchised by making it extraorinarily difficult to vote. Attempts to suppress voter turnout through intimidation, deception, etc., should be treated as the serious crimes that they are -- with rigorous prosecution and with penalties strong enough to discourage such activities.
Ballots should never be discarded (destroyed) until years after an election. They clearly should not be destroyed until the parties involved in the election have had opportunity to mount legal challenges to their disqualification if they desire.

Not only are paper ballots necessary, but hand recounts should be available as a remedy in any case a candidate or party has reason to believe the machine count may be in error (provided they pay for the recount, if the initial results are not close). In fact, hand recounting of a scientific sample of ballots should be done routinely as a check on the electronic results.