Paper ballots over here are done this way: eight citizen volunteers hand out the ballots and count the ballots and report the results, for their slice of the voting district. The process is open, any concerned citizen may observe the process. The results are published on the district level, all newspapers carry theirs. The rest is just adding up.
Yes, even then there will people who mess with it, usually by exploiting letter votes in assisted living places or letter votes in general, but that’s usually limited to local elections.
