I beg to differ. ELD is not making a mountain out of a molehill but trying to downplay this serious issue and shift the blame to the contractors.
If an empty ballot box can "escape" the tight scrutiny of ELD, who is to say that there won't be a ballot box or two filled with voted ballots "lost" in the process. Afterall, based on what is reported it seems that ELD do not even know how many ballot boxes were being returned.
It is unlikely that the ELD will close the count unless all the boxes are accounted for. There must be a checklist for all the boxes to be counted - contractor or no contractor.
Somebody push in the "replacement box filled with their votes" sent it for counting but forgot to remove the real one and destory them?