manual for setting up polling stations and supervising voting. There is one policy manual for determining whether someone who isn't on the voter's list should be allowed to vote. (As an aside, Canada has a national voter's list, compiled from provincial driver's licence registries, tax returns, etc., that aims to list every eligble voter.) Decentralization is sometimes advantageous in that it prevents a corrupt central bureaucracy from affecting the outcome of the entire election. But in this case, I think centralization has its advantages - national standards mean that you aren't leaving your election procedures to the inevitable variations that crop up between counties, and any possible problems with the single national standard are out in the open, ready to be debated and criticized at a national level. (Would some of the voters' list and absentee ballot injustices you hear about in some American counties be tolerated if the same proceedures were in place nationwide? I think it is sometimes just a case of the political majority doing things it knows it can get away with, because the local papers and local political climate will allow it to do so.) And remember, you only have "centralization" in the sense that the overall system is overseen by a national body. 95% of the employees during the election are hired from the community where they will be working the election. I'm not sure how American elections work - and I'm sure there's a lot of variation between jurisdiction - but I'm assuming