On paper, interested parties are supposed to observe the process. What actually happens in physical reality does not always match the guidelines laid out on paper.
> It's relatively difficult to pull off hoodwink when you've got adversarial observers standing there.
I read assurances about what happens in physical reality on a regular basis. Often, these assurances are not actually correct (in no small part because the person providing the assurances was not actually physically present).
I am not asserting that something improper has occurred here, but when journalists are asserting unequivocally and in unison that nothing improper has happened, because the US election system is non-exploitable (while providing zero evidence of this), after having just finished telling me in unison for the last 4 years that Russia "hacked" the 2016 election, I hope you can pardon me if I'm not too keen on taking evidence-free assurances on pure faith.
There was a lot going on across a huge number of voting stations that evening, the notion that not one single thing went wrong is a bit of an extraordinary claim, especially coming from a group of people who don't exactly have a pristine track record of bias or accuracy.
I doubt we'll ever find the truth, or even exert any significant effort in discovering it - that's just the way it is and I can accept that. But it's frustrating that the public is so accepting of this state of affairs.