The United States’ election system is highly decentralized, with over 10,000 different election jurisdictions, each with its own rules set by state and local governments. This structure makes the nation’s elections complicated, but also safe from widespread fraud.

Decentralized Elections

The decentralized system of voting exists because the nation’s Founding Fathers gave authority over elections to the states, rather than the federal government. While Congress has the power to regulate elections, the Constitution makes clear that states have primary authority to set the times, places, and manner for elections.

There is no national election agency that administers the presidential contest, and the responsibility for running an election falls to officials at the local level, usually a clerk or election supervisor, with help from staff and volunteers.

Election Security

Election security experts say the decentralized structure is a strength, as it would require large numbers of election workers in competitive counties to risk prosecution, prison time, and fines to pull off stealing a presidential election. There are also shared practices and security measures in place across the country to ensure that only eligible voters can cast a ballot and only one ballot is counted for each.

Voter fraud can happen, but it’s rare, and there are safeguards to catch it. Voting more than once, tampering with ballots, lying about your residence to vote somewhere else, or casting someone else’s ballot are crimes that can be punished with hefty fines and prison time.

For example, for in-person voting, most states either require or request voters to provide some sort of identification at the polls. Others require voters to verify who they are in another way, such as stating their name and address, signing a poll book, or signing an affidavit.

For absentee voting, all states require a voter’s signature, and many states have further precautions, such as having bipartisan teams compare the signature with other signatures on file, requiring the signature to be notarized, or requiring a witness to sign.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.