Poll watchers must have worked well in the 2020 election in Pennsylvania. When Philadelphia had reported its vote before large parts of Western Pennsylvania I first thought that Trump had a chance to win.
On the other hand, in some of our big blue cities there are precincts in heavily Dem areas, where no Republican is willing to go to be a poll watcher or even an election judge. Every precinct must have a head judge and an assistant from each party, however, if no Republican chooses to go to certain precinct, then Democrats can step in and“help“.
One of the old-fashioned ways of cheating was to vote for people who never showed up in such a precinct. With mail in balloting, etc. who knows now how many ways there are to cheat.
We really need to do the following:
• a registration process which requires the voter to demonstrate both proof of citizenship and proof of residency;
• in-person voting with ID required (absentee voting only with a valid excuse in advance, like it used to be);
• paper ballots;
• manual counting, with the expectation that counts will almost always be completed on election night.