The steal comes from the adjudication process. At any time, an election “official” can decide to change a ballot based on what they think is the true intention of the voter.
You read correctly, at any time your vote can be changed by a partisan hack official, and you have no say in the matter. This happens ALL the time, especially in Rats precincts.
https://2020electionirregularities.com/mailin/ballots-altered-in-the-adjudication-process/
Completely agree that’s an untenable system they’ve adopted. I’m just not sure if what they’re doing in those cases was enough to overcome a 10K-vote (or more) deficit. Instead, I think eyeballing ambiguous (for whatever reason) ballots and ‘discerning the will of the voter’ like a mystical soothsayer could only tilt a very close election, like the recounts you mention.
I still think their bread & butter techniques were largely dependent on the mail-in balloting and vote harvesting elements that were so prevalent in this pandemic election.