The voting machines you will, and won't, see this Election Day

On November 8, millions of Americans will flock to their local polling stations to cast their vote in one of the most controversial presidential elections to date.

Yet the physical machines on which people will be casting their vote is not so uniform. In fact, when it comes to voting machines, it is often left to the state or local level to decide what kind of voting machines the various jurisdictions will use.

After the 2000 election, however, the federal government passed the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which helped bring funding to states to improve the voting systems.

Moving into this election, which has seen much scrutiny about whether the machines can be hacked, it is important to understand the kind of voting machines that are available to you, and those that are not.