> Does the local gov "buying" a voting machine give them total visibility into the software? I am genuinely curious.

No, it doesn't. But there's a wide variety of machines, from comparatively simple, tested-and-true Scantrons to the fancy touch screen Dominion machines with conceptually easier-to-hack software and processes, and plenty of nuance across the board. But I think the author's language is still sloppy, if not downright misleading.

Also, IIRC the purchaser of Dominion has publicly committed to ensuring paper trails for everything, which at least 8 or so years ago was a popular criticism of Dominion machines--what paper receipts it did (or could optionally) produce didn't necessarily provide robust accounting of the overall tabulation system. Beyond being a Trump supporter (which alone says very little about any specific individual), there's no reason to think the new owner would be worse for election integrity than the status quo, and arguably some reason to believe integrity might improve. Only time will tell whether he improves the transparency and integrity of Dominion's products. Though I'm more than a little skeptical, not because of nefarious motives, but just because Dominion's position in the marketplace os providing fancy voting tech. The easiest way to improve integrity might be to just shutdown Dominion's entire voting machine product lineup and tell everybody to move to Scantron paper ballots with hand audits, like California does.

The ones in my precinct had exposed USB ports accessible to the voter while behind the privacy curtain. There was a lockable door to cover them, but they were left open.

When I pointed it out I was told that it was policy and they couldn't lock them. They didn't even have a key.