(a) Subject to the provisions of subsection (b) of this section, the records of each board of elections, and all registers, voting lists, certificates, papers, affidavits, general and duplicate returns, petitions, appeals, witness lists, accounts, contracts, reports, and other documents in its custody shall be open to public inspection, and may be inspected and copied by any qualified elector of the district during ordinary business hours, at any time when they are not necessarily being used by the board, or its employees having duties to perform thereto.
(b) The public inspection permitted by this section shall only be in the presence of a member or authorized employee of the board, and shall be subject to proper regulation for safekeeping of the records and documents, and subject to the further provisions of this title. Returns, tally papers, affidavits of voters and others, and all other papers required to be returned by the election officers to the board sealed, shall be open to public inspection only after the board shall, in the course of computation and canvassing of the returns, have broken the seals and finished, for the time, its use of such papers in connection with such computation and canvassing.