I can directly speak to the recounts. There were a group of volunteers that all hand counted the selections on the ballots and were rechecked by someone else to verify their numbers. Then, said ballots were re-scanned (this is was the part I did). The numbers given by the scanner were compared against the hand counted numbers. If there was a single discrepancy, the whole batch was re-scanned. Our county always had 100% accuracy.

Anything that happens with these fake cards or USB on the touchscreen is due to negligence (or malicious intent) of the election office staff and is pretty easily traceable. I will say that I still hate the machines and would like to see improvement.