Who runs an election

Elections in the United States are run by the states and by their counties and cities, not by a federal election bureau that prints every ballot. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission sets voluntary guidance and sends some federal money. It does not register voters or count a state’s ballots. Vote.gov, a federal portal, sends readers to the state page. It does not take a registration itself on behalf of this website or any campaign.

The state chief election officer is often a secretary of state. In some states it is a board, a lieutenant governor, or an appointed director. That office usually certifies statewide candidates, publishes the calendar, and totals county canvasses for state and federal offices. It does not always run the polling places. Local officials — county clerks, supervisors of elections, municipal clerks, or county boards — maintain the voter list, design the local ballot, staff the sites, and conduct the first canvass. A question about a polling place is almost always a local question.

Titles mislead people who move between states. A “recorder” in one state handles voter registration and maps. In another, a recorder handles deeds and the clerk handles elections. A “supervisor of elections” is a Florida county officer. A “board of elections” is the local body in Ohio and New York. The state hub on this site names the office it linked and uses that office’s title. It does not translate the title into a different state’s vocabulary.

Campaigns, parties, and private websites, including this one, do not decide eligibility, issue a ballot, or certify a result. They may publish guides. A guide can be careful and still be wrong about a deadline that changed after it was checked. The “last updated” line on a page is the latest date stored for the facts on that page. It is an invitation to check the official page, not a claim that the official page has been frozen.

If two pages disagree, use the election office. If this site disagrees with the election office, the election office is the authority and the contact form is how to tell us. That order is the editorial rule. It is also the practical rule on Election Day, when only the official list of sites, the official sample ballot, and the official returns file have a legal role. Everything else, including a well-sourced explainer, is reading material.