Paper ballots are scanned upon receipt. So you might as well fax your ballot. They keep the paper for a while, sometimes used for manual recounts, under very narrow circumstances.
Because there's no second chance, admins have to adjudicate for voter intent. So they modify the votes in the database.
To protect the database, as part of the backup, the votes are tallied both at end and beginning of shift. That means a running vote count. Law is that votes can only be tabulated when the polls close. So admin's have the fiction of "summary reports" vs "tabulation".
Yes, admins peek at early results.
Another new threat to integrity is signature verification. But that's a whole topic onto itself.
Happily...
The biggest mitigation would be to switch from brittle FPTP to robust approval voting and proportional representation (as appropriate).
Because there's no second chance, admins have to adjudicate for voter intent. So they modify the votes in the database.
To protect the database, as part of the backup, the votes are tallied both at end and beginning of shift. That means a running vote count. Law is that votes can only be tabulated when the polls close. So admin's have the fiction of "summary reports" vs "tabulation".
Yes, admins peek at early results.
Another new threat to integrity is signature verification. But that's a whole topic onto itself.
Happily...
The biggest mitigation would be to switch from brittle FPTP to robust approval voting and proportional representation (as appropriate).