Regulations seem to me like they are always reactionary to bad shit happening, we're just too dumb to be prescient enough to get ahead of the problems because we are too arrogant to think we'll make the same mistakes we always make and because we think our intentions are insurance against those mistakes if they do happen.
One problem with voting machines is that "bad stuff happening" can be beneficial to the people in charge of overseeing them, quite the opposite of gambling machines.
I think it makes sense that regulations are reactionary against bad shit that has (traffic fatalities, market manipulation, food and drug safety, etc) or is currently happening (global climate change). If we tried to write regulations against everything that might possibly maybe go wrong, I imagine we would end up with an unworkable regulatory landscape that ends up doing more harm than good. And I say this as someone who thinks regulations are a good thing on balance.
