If I may, I'd like to offer a different perspective. In my job as a prosecutor, something I see over and over again is juries wanting to believe the defendant,

If I may, I'd like to offer a different perspective. In my job as a prosecutor, something I see over and over again is juries wanting to believe the defendant, even when their story isn't credible. If you have a likeable defendant and there's any doubt, reasonable or not, juries will acquit. So when the little old lady government worker who could be your grandmother says that she was just doing what she thought she was supposed to and golly gee she doesn't understand this whiz-bang computer stuff ("They keep talking about digital evidence, and I just feel hopeless putting up my defense... I don't even know what digital evidence is!")... it's very hard to convince a jury it was intentional. Shredding paper ballots is a lot more of a compelling narrative to put in front of a panel.