Voting system vary across the USA, according to the individual county. Our systems (Ventura County, Caliornia) uses a paper ballot which is electronically scanned and recorded. The paper ballot is retained in case of the need for a recount until the storage space is needed for the next election. The tallying, and all phases of the casting and processing of ballots is open to public view. It is mostly like watching paint dry...

Not all systems rely on paper ballots and there are recent stories of unaccountable glitches in some systems, which is a really serious problem.

I have been working as a part time employee in elections for nearly two decades and it has been really gratifying to see the strenuous efforts to secure an accurate count of the ballots, time after time...

Anyway, a good multi-tool rules, whether in the wilderness or in the polling place....

Mods: I know this is inching toward the forbidden "P" word, but the intent is to make these comments strictly non-partisan