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unless there were enough accomplices able to carry out simultaneous hacks in a sufficient number of other precincts to effect the outcome of the targeted race(s).
Poll workers actually are a small link (though certainly an essential one) in the chain of custody in electronic voting processes.
For both DREs and optical scan, the ballot begins its journey with the vendor whose employees create the hardware and software that will record and count the votes, and with the other vendors whose hard/software will be used, i.e, Diebold uses Windows CE for their TS-R6 voting system. These employees work behind a curtain of secrecy. The public doesn't know who they are, what their backgrounds are, what their politics are, whether or not they are honest, dishonest, paid political operatives or John/Jane Q. Citizens. Their work, the software code, is created in secret and can not be tested or verified in public because of laws regarding proprietary software.
The software and hardware then moves to the Independent Testing Authorities, whose employees also are working behind the same kind of curtain, although the public does know that a man named Shawn Southworth works for Ciber on certifying the US's voting software. The Independent Testing Authorities are paid by the vendors to certify their hardware & software as secure, accurate & reliable. They do this without public scrutiny.
The ITA's certify the voting systems based on Voting System Standards (VSS), which are now overseen by the Election Assistance Commission. The public can scrutinize the VSS, and what they have found is big loopholes and escape hatches so that basically almost anything (that matters, like security) goes.
Once through the rigorous (really? what?) qualification testing by the ITAs, the systems go to the states. Some states also require further testing (done in secret with methods that are secret by people whose resumes are secret whose reports are kept secret).
The next step is the testing of the systems in front of the public (like Logic and Accuracy testing) which if problems the people get kicked out and the door slammed shut (no exaggeration).
So, now the machines come to the precincts, maybe after being stored or transported in ways that compromised security. The software/hardware on those machines may count the votes correctly or may not. The poll worker has absolutely no way to know either way. None whatsoever. The poll worker can count heads and compare that count with the machine count to see if the numbers agree, and if a step in that count involves paper records of voters signing in, there is some evidence to confirm or question the machine total votes.
A poll worker can watch to make sure no mischief takes place at the polls during the time the worker is there, at least to a certain point, and as I said, hacks done at the precinct level would take lots of accomplices at other polling places to change the outcome of an election.
But there is no way for a poll worker to have any idea whatsoever whether the software/hardware is counting the votes as cast when it comes to electronic voting, either on DREs or optical scan, unless there is a paper record of the actual vote and that record is counted by poll workers in a public setting and those totals are checked against the machine totals.
I would suggest that you could say "I have no evidence for that " but need to add "I have no evidence that your votes have not been hacked."
Good luck on Tuesday and thanks for the work you do.
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