Not everything will be perfect on Election Day, but elections in the United States are remarkably reliable

WASHINGTON (AP) — On election daysome voting lines will likely be long and some precincts may run out of ballots. An election office’s website could be temporarily down, blocking ballot counters. Or people who help run elections just act like the people they are and forget their key to a local polling place, forcing it to open later than scheduled.

Mishaps like this have occurred again and again in the history of US elections. Still, election officials across America have consistently conducted presidential elections and accurately determined the results — and there is no reason to believe this year will be any different.

Elections are a foundation of democracy. They are also human exercises that can sometimes seem chaotic, despite all the laws and rules that govern their implementation. They are conducted by election officials and volunteers in thousands of jurisdictions across the United States, from tiny townships to sprawling urban districts with more voters than the population of some states.

It is a unique American system that, despite its shortcomings, reliably produces certified results that stand up to scrutiny. This is true even in a time of misinformation and hyperpartisanship.

“Things are going to go wrong,” he said Jen Easterlythe director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

None of this means the election is tainted, rigged, or stolen. But Easterly said election offices need to be transparent about the hiccups so they can get ahead of misinformation and attempts to exploit routine problems to undermine confidence in the election results.

“Ultimately we have to recognize that something is going to go wrong. They always do,” Easterly said. “It’s really going to depend on how state and local election officials communicate that things are going wrong.”

An election problem? It’s probably human error

It wasn’t long ago that American voters accepted the results even if their preferred presidential candidate lost.

Even in 2000, when 104 million votes resulted in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that effectively made Republican George W. Bush president, his opponent, Democrat Al Gore, quickly caved. The republic continued peacefully.

Times have changed dramatically since then.

The internet, false claims and a voting public vulnerable to conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud have changed that. Trust in the system is lowespecially under Republican voters whose perceptions were shaped by a constant Drum roll of lies about the Election 2020 from Donald Trumpthe former president, who is the Republican nominee in the November 5 vote.

At his campaign rallies Trump continues to claim that he can only lose if the other side manipulates the election. In fact, it would be virtually impossible for anyone to rig a U.S. presidential race because the country’s elections are decentralized and conducted by thousands of local or regional voting districts.

What is more likely are simple mistakes and technical glitches that happen in every election.

“When elections are very close and you have to look under the hood, sometimes you run into problems. “Almost always, these problems are the result of human error, incompetence — not wrongdoing,” said Rick Hasen, an election law expert and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“Both voter fraud and voter fraud are currently very rare in the United States. If it happens, it’s not that hard to detect because of the safeguards in the system.”

Why do we need this discussion?

Distrust of elections is real and has serious consequences. Lies about the 2020 election to be manipulated were a catalyst for the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

This happened despite Trump and his allies Lost dozens of court cases aimed to overturn his defeat to the Democrats Joe Biden. Even a commission created by Trump While the president investigated the 2016 election in hopes of identifying widespread voter fraud, he found none. The situation was similar with special police units set up by some Republican governors with empty hands as they looked for widespread fraud during the 2022 midterm elections.

In addition to the lawsuits, Trump’s own Attorney General And Reviews, told And Exams in the presidency Battleground states found no evidence of widespread fraud and confirmed Biden’s victory.

That didn’t matter.

In 2023, a significant portion of Republicans still believed in Biden was not the rightful person electedand have election conspiracy theories took root in Republican-leaning communities.

It would be wrong to say that it never exists any fraud associated with elections. But in the 2020 election, an Associated Press battleground investigation found that Trump disputed his loss Found too small an amount change the choice. In most casesthese were individuals acting alone, not as part of a grand conspiracy to rig the election.

“The history of the last few decades shows that electoral systems in the United States are very secure,” said Robert Lieberman, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University.

Then what can we expect if not fraud?

Fundamental errors, whether human or technical.

In Jackson, Mississippi, a voting problem was blamed Inexperience and lack of training. In Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Inexperience was once again the culprit when polling stations ran out of ballots.

Sometimes that Envelopes used to return mailed ballots can cause problems. The Pennsylvania Department of State recently announced on turn around.

Paper was the culprit in a Maricopa County, Arizona, in 2022 when ballot printers had problems, causing large backlogs in voter lines.

Possible problems on the horizon

One of the biggest concerns about the 2024 presidential election is that high sales in election offices across the country, particularly in some of the presidential campaigns, said Edward B. Foley, a law professor who directs Ohio State University’s election law program.

Before the 2022 midterms, for example 10 of Nevada’s 17 counties There has been turnover among their clerk or registrar positions that oversee voting.

Threats and harassment by those who believe election conspiracy theories fueled turnover. Despite all the training poll workers receive, there is no substitute for the experience of working through a major election cycle.

Many of those who left had years or even decades of experience. In some cases they have been replaced by humans little or no experienceand who sometimes have spread conspiracy theories.

“If you’re looking for something to pay attention to and worry about,” Foley said, “this is a place.”

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Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy and Ali Swenson contributed to this report.

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Read more about how US elections work Declare election 2024a series from The Associated Press designed to help understand American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to improve its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. Learn more about AP’s Democracy Initiative Here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.