[tacticus]

Unlike the US the elections aren't run by some local arsehat with local rules. they have consistent rules over the entire state or country (depending on election in question)

Scrutineers are also not members of the public. They are declared and appointed by candidates and parties for polling oversight and have complete access to the counting and polling area. They're not allowed to touch ballots but they can challenge and bring them up to all the scrutineers in the location (and EC staff) and finally they can take it to the court afterwards

Election officials are also not local council\elected people they're people working for the AEC\State Electoral commission. which is as mentioned above a non partisan organisation (which is highly different from bipartisan framing)

You also have a large number of counting staff. who do the sorting and then counting with machine assistance (how many sheets are here in this stack do they match the tally the 2 people already made on that pile)

Though the senate elections have a more complex voting software stack due to STV fun.

[anon291]

Again, misconceptions abound. US elections are run by bureaucrats with an elected head. There are consistent rules across the entire state for all elections, with some federal oversight. Scrutineers are appointed by both parties, but also from members of the public.

Like... what do you think American elections are actually like? Do you think some democrat/republican counts them in secret somewhere?