All the votes are stored with no paper, electronically, in a secure flash card for each machine and on the Master PEB cartridge, but they can be displayed on a computer screen, post-election. That's useful if there are voters who have data points they're willing to openly offer. (I voted on machine 1 in my precinct/district, ~ 12:30 pm, voted one at a time for all Dem candidates save one, wrote in a name for my unopposed Dem state rep, and voted against the raising Judge age initiative. So there should be a vote stored, on the district/precinct Master cart for Ward 19, District 28, City of Pittsburgh, from machine 1 at 12:30 that shows those exact preferences recorded. That vote should also be stored on machine 1's flash card. If there isn't a vote for Hillary Clinton for Prez and "Gi Gi Sullivan" for PA State Rep on machine 1 at ~ 12:30, that is evidence of felony election tampering that benefitted the repug prez candidate. The machines are called DREs, Direct Recording Electronic, they're supposed to record, store, then transfer the actual ballot cast by each voter to the Master cart.)
We sign in to vote on a paper voter certificate card, kept alphabetically in a box that looks like an old library card catalogue. There's a paper district binder that has an alphabetical list of registered voters with photostat copies of the voters' signatures, which they submitted when they registered to vote for the first time, or when they moved to a new polling district and re-registered. The poll workers write every voter's name on two separate but identitical paper district check in lists, numbered in the order that they checked in to vote. The voter certificate card has a ticket connected to it that is detached, we take it to the poll worker at the machines, they take half the ticket and put it into an envelope hanging on the side of the machine we will vote on, and give us the stub. (I keep mine, some people toss theirs, or lose them, whatever.)
So there's a bunch of paperwork that could be used for verification. The signed voter certificate cards can have their signatures checked against the district register's signatures. The 2 identical district voter check in lists can be crossed referenced with the signed voter cert cards. The voter cert cards' ticket stubs in each machine's envelopes show exactly what signed-in registered voter voted on that particular machine. They're random in the envelope, not kept in any order, to respect the privacy of each voter's vote, in case the voter is afraid to say who they voted for.
IF things were kosher at my poll, there's going to be 524 signed cards, with signatures that substantially match the signatures in the district register (may be a few less, because some ballots were cast absentee, but those ballots have a signature also.) There are going to be 524 (minus absentee #) v cert card tickets divvied up into the envelopes for the 3 machines. The two identical district check in lists will show 524 (minus absentee vote number) names that match with the signed v cert cards. If any of that paperwork doesn't jine, something irregular occurred at the district/precinct level, and it's evidence of election fraud.
With no interference, I bet I could single handedly verify the vote count in my district in less than one day.
And any recount effort could include outreach to district voters listed as having voted, that verifies that they cast a ballot. I'd be more than happy to go door to door on my own time, while not engaged in official recount efforts, in the district I vote in and used to represent as Dem committeeperson, to verify with the listed (checked in) voters that they cast ballots.
In this election, my district/precinct showed both an unusually high (81%) turn out rate (10% higher than the county average) and a "preference for dRumpf" rate that was 14 - 19% higher than the two neighboring polls I worked for election protection, in the neighborhood next door, 3 miles Southeast from me. My polling place was more than a half hour later in completing the poll closing process than the 2 polls I worked, and there was not a crowd of voters visible inside the polls who had not voted yet, but had been in line at 8 pm and were therefore eligibly waiting inside the locked poll to vote. My district/precinct is a Dem stronghold that had zero dRumpf signs visible this election, though there were several (7) visible 3 precincts away from me, 1.5 miles Northwest. When I was a Dem committee person in this district in 2011, there were 486 Dems registered and 141 R s.
Looking at the district paperwork, in a recount, won't do anything about an electronic vote flip on the precinct level, it won't show if there was a hack in the county election dept's central tabulator, it won't show if there was electronic manipulation at the state level where the counties' sent their tabulated results totals to get the overall state results. But, aside from checking the voter datapoint I offered (the actual unique ballot choices I openly admit to making), in past recount efforts there was evidence of electronic irregularities exposed during the recount process.
In Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), for the '04 election recount, there was evidence exposed that a bunch of extra votes had been added for li'l bush. The random audit showed that there was a long run of voters in a row for bush, then a shorter run of voters for Kerry, then another long run of voters for bush, etc. (Conyers Report, What Went Wrong In Ohio? Page 88, paperback edition.) The odds of something like that happening would be the same as flipping a coin 20 times and having it come up tails every time, then flipping it 10 more times and having it come up heads, then flipping it 25 more times and having it be tails, with the resulting totals being recorded as 45 tails, 10 heads. The statistically-nearly-impossible long runs of identical voter preferences showed a lazy and not very sneaky attempt had been made to pump up the repug candidate's vote totals in a Dem stronghold area.
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