The thing is is that ballots aren't permanently stored at the polling location, they eventually need to be transported to a central location for auditing and st

The thing is is that ballots aren't permanently stored at the polling location, they eventually need to be transported to a central location for auditing and storage. In the past, polling places with lax security could "lose" an entire box of ballots. Nowadays, if a couple thousand ballots disappear from a certain zip code, the authorities would be on it pretty quickly. In Washington state where I live and has email balloting, the central location is a secure county election facility that invites citizens to visit in person and through the internet to watch the counting process as it happens.