We use ink and scan here. The pen is a permanent marker that soaks into the paper, and the paper seems to be designed to soak it up without smudging. You aren’t getting it off without destroying the paper.
Ballots run through the machine twice, then drop into a locked bin the scanner is mounted over. The ballot box and the scanner are essentially separate units. And they’re transported separately. So if you have access to the machine you don’t neccisarily have access to the ballots.
