2016 Postmortem

I've worked the polls with machines that have seals and dire warnings. Some of the seals are important, others not so much. Some, like the scanned ballot box, are irrelevant since the ballots are removed at closing and there's nothing in there but unused supplies. Not just the ballots are scooted out to a central location, the chip with the totals is out the door, too, so it's no big deal if the chip door doesn't have a seal either, after the polls close.

It may be a big deal if the ballot door or other seal is messed with while the polls are open.

But...

And this is a big "but"...

Poll workers are not always that well trained and/or don't always understand the seals. In NY, they are also dead tired after a 16-17 hour day and miss things.

The other big "but" is that the system is designed to allow for this without corrupting the vote.