Here's how California keeps early votes secret until election day

[Fresh_Start]

“(U)nder no circumstances may a vote count be accessed or released until 8 p.m. on the day of the election,” the election code states. No one wants to influence the outcome of a race by releasing vote counts before the polls close.

Yet once a ballot is scanned, doesn’t a computer take over? Isn’t a vote total in there somewhere? Couldn’t someone take a peek at it?

https://calmatters.org/politics/votebeat/2020/10/california-early-votes-secret/

[Hekate]

1. People who "take a peek" at electronic files when it's not in their job description get FIRED

And rightly so. Sometimes they get prosecuted, as well.

[getagrip_already]

2. I'll bet it happens in places like FL though......

I just don't trust them not to be sharing vote totals on a daily basis with the gop, even if it's on a napkin tossed in a particular trash can at a specific time.

In other places, like here in MA, each town (there are 350+ towns) and city is allowed to scan ballots as they come in, but those totals must be kept on a usb stick and kept in a safe until election day. One stick per machine used.

They are not allowed to load those sticks into the tabulation machines until polls open.

So nobody can peek at the state wide numbers because the state doesn't have them. The towns do.