America's election systems are more than just machines — they're people, who are overworked, underpaid and feeling pressured

U.S. elections are administered at the local level — each county, or even municipality, has its own rules, and its own officials to execute them

When people think about making elections secure, they often think about voting machines, cybersecurity and mechanical threats. They don’t think about people.

Since 2016, when there was evidence of computer hacking that did not affect the election’s results, the federal government has taken significant steps to secure elections, such as declaring election systems as crucial to national security as the defense industry, nuclear power plants and highways. This has allowed state and local officials to apply for federal funding and technical support to buy equipment and get training to protect elections.

These measures have largely paid off. Voting systems’ hardware and software are regularly tested by federal, state and local election authorities. Two dozen states rely on voting machines more than a decade old, which is generally considered past their life span. But this is down from 43 states in 2014, and ongoing efforts to update the operating systems in the older machines mean fewer glitches and breakdowns on Election Day.

Improved computer systems have streamlined and increased the efficiency of voter registration processes, and maintenance and updating of voter rolls, as well as making them more secure.

There is always a chance of problems at the polls, but Election Day difficulties are much less common than ever in the past.

These are all important steps. But as a scholar of voting systems, I believe the focus on the machinery of elections has obscured a different threat to the nation’s elections: Local election administrators work under increasingly difficult circumstances, with dwindling resources and mounting challenges.

A survey of local election officials conducted by the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit election reform group, finds that just 2% of them say they have everything they need to do what’s required of them.