An election is the act or process by which citizens cast a vote to select an individual for an office. Although an election is a single event, an election system involves the integration of the people, processes, and technology that are generally associated with the preparation and administration of an election. The basic goals of election systems in the United States are to enable every eligible citizen who wishes to vote to cast a single ballot in private and have the votes on that ballot counted accurately. Administering an election is a year-round activity that generally consists of the following: Voter registration--This includes local election officials registering eligible voters and maintaining voter registration lists to include updates to registrants’ information and deletions of the names of registrants who are no longer eligible to vote. Absentee and early voting--This type of voting allows eligible persons to vote in-person or by mail before election day. The conduct of an election--This aspect of election administration includes preparation before election day, such as local election officials arranging for polling places, recruiting and training poll workers, designing ballots, and preparing voting equipment for use in casting and tabulating votes; and election day activities, such as opening and closing polling places and assisting voters to cast votes. Vote counting--This includes election officials tabulating the cast ballots; determining whether and how to count ballots that cannot be read by the vote counting equipment; certifying the final vote counts; and performing recounts, if required. As shown in figure 3, each stage of an election involves people and technology. Under its various constitutional authorities, Congress has passed legislation regarding the administration of both federal and state elections, including voter registration, absentee voting, accessibility provisions for the elderly and handicapped, and prohibitions against discriminatory practices. Congress enacted the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) commonly known as the “Motor Voter” Act, to establish registration procedures designed to “increase the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in elections for Federal office,” without compromising “the integrity of the electoral process” or the maintenance of “accurate and current voter registration rolls.” NVRA expanded the number of locations and opportunities for citizens to apply to register. For example, under NVRA, citizens are to be able to apply to register (1) when applying for or renewing a driver’s license; (2) at various state agencies, such as public assistance centers; or (3) by mailing a national voter registration application to a designated election official. NVRA also establishes requirements to ensure that state programs to identify and remove from voter registration rolls the names of individuals who are no longer eligible to vote are uniform, nondiscriminatory, and do not exclude a voter from the rolls solely because of his or her failure to vote. Finally, NVRA requires that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) submit to Congress a biennial report with recommendations assessing the impact of the NVRA on the administration of elections for federal office during the preceding 2-year period. The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act of 1986 (UOCAVA) requires that states permit the following categories of citizens to apply to register and vote by absentee voting in federal elections: (1) members of the uniformed services living overseas, (2) all other citizens living overseas, and (3) uniformed services voters and their dependents in the United States who are living outside of their voting jurisdiction. In addition, the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act of 1984 requires, with some exceptions, election jurisdictions to provide alternate means of casting a ballot (e.g., absentee and early voting) for all elections in which election day polling places are not accessible to people with disabilities. Congress, however, has been most active with respect to enacting prohibitions against discriminatory voting practices. For example, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 codifies and effectuates the Fifteenth Amendment’s guarantee that no person shall be denied the right to vote on account of race or color. Subsequent amendments to the Act expanded it to include protections for members of language minority groups, as well as other matters regarding voting registration and procedures. States regulate the election process, including, for example, ballot access, registration procedures, absentee voting requirements, establishment of voting places, provision of election day workers, and counting and certification of the vote. As described by the Supreme Court, “the tates have evolved comprehensive, and in many respects complex, election codes regulating in most substantial ways, with respect to both federal and state elections, the time, place, and manner of holding primary and general elections, the registration of voters, and the selection and qualification of candidates.” In fact, the U.S. election system comprises 51 somewhat distinct election systems—those of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. However, although election policy and procedures are legislated primarily at the state level, states typically have decentralized this process so that the details of administering elections are carried out at the city or county levels, and voting is done at the local level. At the federal level, no agency bears direct responsibility for election administration. However, in 1975, Congress created FEC to administer and enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act. To carry out this role, FEC discloses campaign finance information; enforces provisions of the law, such as limits and prohibitions on contributions; and oversees the public funding of presidential elections. FEC’s Office of Election Administration (OEA) serves as a national clearinghouse for information regarding the administration of federal elections. As such, OEA assists state and local election officials by developing voluntary voting system standards, responding to inquiries, publishing research on election issues, and conducting workshops on matters related to election administration. The administrative structure and authority given to those responsible for elections vary from state to state. The majority of states vest election authority in a secretary of state (or other state cabinet-level official) who is elected for a term of 2 to 4 years. The approval of voting equipment for use in a state may be a responsibility of the secretary of state or another entity, such as a State Board of Elections. State officials usually provide information services and technical support to local election jurisdictions but seldom participate in the day-to-day administration of an election. Local election jurisdictions, such as counties, cities, townships, and villages, conduct elections, including federal and state contests. Although some states bear some election costs, it is local jurisdictions that pay for elections and provide the officials who conduct the elections. Local election administration officials may be elected, appointed, or be professional employees. State or local regulations determine who functions as the chief elections official. Elections may be conducted by county or town clerks, registrars, election boards, bureaus, or commissions, or some combination thereof. The election administration official may have extensive or little experience and training in running elections. Local jurisdictions administer elections within the framework of state laws and regulations that provide for differing degrees of local control over how elections are conducted, including voting equipment to be used, ballot design, and voter identification requirements at polling places. One of the responsibilities of state and/or local election officials is to recruit, train, assign, and compensate permanent and temporary personnel. These personnel may include: voting equipment operators, voter registrars, absentee ballot clerks, polling place workers, and election day phone bank operators. Depending on the jurisdiction, these workers could be part-time or full-time, appointed or elected, paid or unpaid volunteers. Some election workers support election administration activities during the year, and others work only on election day. For the November 2000 election, about 1.4 million poll workers staffed precincts across the country on election day. The size of local election jurisdictions varies enormously, from a few hundred voters in some rural counties to Los Angeles County, whose total of registered voters exceeds that of 41 states. For the purposes of voting, election authorities subdivide local election jurisdictions into precincts, which range in size from a few hundred to more than a thousand people. Voters are assigned to a specific precinct where they are to vote on election day. All voters in a precinct vote at one place, such as a school or other public facility. For the November 2000 election, there were more than about 186,000 precincts in about 10,000 local election jurisdictions. However, precincts may be combined in a single polling place. For example, voters from a few precincts in a small jurisdiction may vote in a single location, such as the town high school. Voting technologies are tools for accommodating the millions of voters in our nation’s approximately 10,000 local election jurisdictions. These tools can be as simple as a pencil, paper, and a box, or as sophisticated as computer-based touchscreens—and one day, perhaps, Web-based applications running on personal computers. To be fully understood, all these technologies need to be examined in relation to the people who participate in elections (both voters and election workers) and the processes that govern their interaction with each other and with the technologies. To integrate the functions associated with readying vote casting and tallying equipment for a given election with other election management functions, jurisdictions can use election management systems. The methods by which votes are cast and counted in the United States today can be placed into five categories; the latter four methods employ varying degrees of technology. The five methods are paper ballot, lever machine, punch card, optical scan, and direct recording electronic (DRE). Table 1 shows the percentage of jurisdictions, precincts, and registered voters who used the different voting methods. The paper ballot and lever machines have been used in the United States for more than a century, and versions of the other three methods have been used for 20 to 40 years. For paper ballots, the vote count is done by hand; lever machines keep a mechanical count.