@roamer_1 @Cyber LibertyHow votes are counted in counties:
In counties, there is an equal number of Democrats and Republicans in Central Counting. These workers are selected by their Republican Chairman and Democrat Chairman. If the counting goes on all night, Republicans and Democrats are still there, likely other Reps and Dems come to take the place of the ones who worked all day. The point is, both parties are there if Central Counting keeps counting through the night.
Years ago, when my husband and I started a Republican Party in a county that had no Republican Party, only had Democrats in office, the Democrat County Clerk would not allow Republicans to be in Central Counting. So, I wrote a law establishing a Judge of Central Counting just as there is an Election Judge in every voting precinct. This law was approved/passed by both the Texas House and Texas Senate. In this law creating a Judge of Central Counting, the Judge must be of the party of the Governor now in office. Since a Republican was/is the governor, the Judge of Central Counting in every county of Texas must be a Republican. Writing that law meant
all counties must have a Republican Judge in Central Counting. If you live in Texas, your county goes by "my" law to have a Judge of Central Countning and the Judge must be a Republican.
No longer could this Democrat County Clerk in our county, keep Republicans out of Central Counting. This was printed in our weekly paper and I was told by one in her office, that when she read that, she threw the paper across the room. (She hated my guts from then on.)
My point here is, there are laws in every state that determine how votes are counted and who counts them. It is not a free for all fight in a county when ballots are counted, either paper ballots, or machine counting.
I think I wrote about how tabulation machines are bought. In Texas, a county can only buy machines approved by the Secretary of State and Dominion machines were not approved.