If you're looking to me as the purveyor of Ron Paul's inner thoughts, I will suggest that you look elsewhere.
Before HAVA the use of electronic voting machines was remarkably less pronounced. While not directly mandating that Electronic Voting Machines were to be used, the versatility that a software medium provides along with the 850 million dollars given to replace obsolete machines effectively ends with the same result.
Electronic voting machine vulnerabilities are well documented, and original HAVA standards (and perhaps even amended HAVA standards) were too lenient.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Government Accountability Office
"Computer security experts and others have criticized the 2002 voting system standards for not containing requirements sufficient to ensure secure and reliable voting systems. Common concerns with the standards involve vague and incomplete security provisions, inadequate provisions for some commercial products and networks, and inadequate documentation requirements."
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And if a electronic voting machine was compromised, a backup paper trail created by the same machine would be just as suspect as the machine itself.
I believe with much more stringent requirements on the security and reliability of electronic voting machines they could be a fine alternative to paper voting but at that point it may not even be feasible to use. I'm not saying that we should return to a punchcard system, as it has shown itself flawed, but there are better alternatives such as optical scan voting systems. As it looks to me, HAVA strongly encouraged the introduction of a system that was not reliable or secure enough to be trusted in an election.
I do believe that Ron Paul voted against the act because he thought it was an unnecessary expansion of government. I also believe that he was aware of its other flaws but I can't back that up with any solid evidence.