Thousands of elections, with different rules.
Why this is the way America votes

CARTERSVILLE, Ga.

In Louisiana, you can cast a ballot in person during a week of early voting ahead of Election Day. But just across the state line in Mississippi, voters don’t have this option. In Arizona, a person must show a photo ID to vote, while no such requirement exists in neighboring Nevada.

This is how America votes.

Instead of one national election under one set of rules that voters everywhere must follow, the U.S. elects its president through more than 10,000 local elections -- each conducted under rules set by state and, to some extent, local governments.

10,000+ election jurisdictions

The rules can and do vary from state to state – and sometimes, within a state and even a county.

This highly decentralized system exists because the nation’s Founding Fathers in drafting the Constitution gave authority over elections to the states, rather than the federal government. While Congress has the power to regulate – and has done so to pass such laws as the Voting Rights Act – the Constitution makes clear that states have primary authority to set the “times, places and manner” for elections.

State lawmakers approve the laws that govern the voting process in their states – and this can vary widely, depending on how they think elections should work.

There also is no national election agency or commission to oversee the presidential contest, as often exists outside the U.S. And when it comes to doing the day-to-day work of running an election, the responsibility falls to officials at the local level — usually a clerk or election supervisor – with help from staff and volunteers.

What may seem disorderly, with the sheer number of election jurisdictions and various laws, is actually by design. Still, confusion about how elections are run and laws that differ from state to state helped fuel conspiracy theories still swirling today about the 2020 election, including the false claim that the presidential election was stolen.

In fact, there was no widespread fraud or tampering with the vote. And rules that differ don’t mean an election was inaccurate or that fraud occurred.

Election jurisdictions range from urban counties like Los Angeles, with millions of voters, to tiny places such as Dixville Township, New Hampshire, where registered voters — this year there were six — turn out at midnight to cast the first ballots of the 2024 presidential primary.

The differences in U.S. election laws range from how voters receive a ballot to what it takes to have it counted and whether a person can walk up to a polling place on Election Day and register to vote or must plan weeks ahead.

Lawmakers in eight states, for instance, have decided that mail ballots should be sent automatically to all registered voters, but other states want voters to have to request them and some even require a reason to vote by mail. Several offer drop boxes for such ballots, while some states don't allow them at all.

It can get complicated — quickly.

Yet for all the differences in election rules, experts say it’s a strength that the nation’s elections are so decentralized.

To pull off stealing a presidential election, it would require large numbers of election workers in the most competitive counties across the country who are willing to risk prosecution, prison time and fines while working with officials from both parties willing to look the other way. And everyone somehow would have to keep quiet – a highly unlikely scenario.

There are also shared practices and security measures in place across the country that together work to ensure that only eligible voters can cast a ballot and only one ballot is counted for each.

All states have a multi-step process for verifying mail ballots, typically starting with regular reviews to ensure the list of eligible voters and their addresses is as accurate and up to date as possible. This includes work by election officials to verify the ballot is legitimate, checking the voter’s name and address on the ballot envelope to ensure it’s the same person who was sent the ballot and – in most cases – matching a voter’s signature or ID information to the voter file.

All election offices also have measures in place to ensure that every registered voter casts only one ballot, and officials conduct post-election audits that in many cases include a hand count of a pre-selected number of ballots to ensure tabulators counted correctly.

It’s work that never really ends. All around the country, election offices are constantly receiving voter registration applications, checking eligibility, scanning death and court records and removing ineligible voters from the rolls.

Electronic Voting Technician Beth Howard works at the Bartow County Election office, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024, in Cartersville, Ga.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, left, speaks with Bartow County Election Supervisor Joseph Kirk at the county election office, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024, in Cartersville, Ga.

That was the case on a cold and rainy day in January, when employees of the Bartow County Elections Office north of Atlanta were getting ready for Georgia’s March 12 presidential primary.

Inside a former state office building, county election workers were reviewing ballots, testing voting machines, processing absentee ballot requests and making plans for the county’s roughly 76,000 registered voters to cast their ballots.

In Georgia, voters have access to automatic voter registration, three weeks of early voting, no-excuse mail ballots and at least one ballot drop box per county. Next door in Alabama, these options are not available.

“We have a lot of communities in the United States,” said Bartow County Election Supervisor Joseph Kirk, who oversees the office. “What works for one may not work for another.”

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.