General Discussion

It's being spun as though there's a small defined group of county officers and ballots must stay with them in order to comply with the law.

There is a state law that comes closer, but it conflicts with another state law and a court already ruled on how to handle that conflict.

But §20701 doesn't say that ballots have to stay locked up by county officials. In the clear context of §20702 it's really about forbidding those officials from destroying/damaging/altering (etc.) those records. Not that they can't be used based on actions of state officials or court orders. That interpretation would, of course, be ridiculous (as well as likely unconstitutional).

The key here is §20706 which defines "officer of election"... which clearly includes a vendor hired to perform an audit (making them also obligated to not "willfully steal, destroy, conceal, mutilate, or alter any record or paper" ). Meaning that at no time were the records "no longer in the custody of election officials". If you moonlight as an Uber driver and the Senate's selected supervisor of the audit tells you to drive ten boxes of ballots over to the warehouse... you become an "officer or election" for purposes of this law (and legally liable for any willful destruction of those records). It would be a stupid way to handle the records (and likely violate state law), but it wouldn't violate this federal law.