Every state does things a little differently, but where I live paper ballots enter an optical scanner and every dozens/hundreds of ballots a subtotal is printed

Every state does things a little differently, but where I live paper ballots enter an optical scanner and every dozens/hundreds of ballots a subtotal is printed on a continuous stored piece of cash-register like tape. The presumably neutral election volunteers and the opposing party observers are fascinated by that tape every time it prints something. I don't know if there's a law or mere gentleman's agreement to not report results until after the polls close, but something is being periodically reported. The subtotal tape cries out to have a block chain added to make it impossible to rewrite history. Once the five neighboring precincts hash and sign my precincts results it would be very difficult to later fake historical results. There is of course the false assumption that everyone involved in elections wants a fair election, in which case systems will be constrained to make a fair election impossible, with technologies such as e-voting or obscure registration procedures or strange voting laws in general. But its very easy to run a fair election if the people running it want it that way. If. The sheer amount of problems indicate a very large number of people actively discourage democracy in practice.