The explanations for flawed and failed contests considered so far emphasize the wider contextual environment, far removed from conducting any specific elections. An additional plausible argument focuses more directly on the structure, capacity, and ethos of the electoral authorities charged with administering elections. These are the front-line agencies embedded within the broader societal, international, and constitutional settings for electoral governance. Ideally, for contests to meet global norms electoral officials should ensure that they deliver public services meeting international standards. Unfortunately, too often contests appear to fall foul of simple human errors, technical malfunctions, and logistical failures. Problems occur where polling stations run out of ballot papers. Poorly trained poll workers are unfamiliar with procedures. Dead people are listed on voter registers. Other legitimate citizens are turned away. Electronic voting machines break. Indelible ink washes off fingers. Ballot boxes have broken seals. Officials fail to check voter identification. Long lines delay closure. Electoral legitimacy can be damaged by accidental maladministration, and indeed official incompetence may facilitate intentional acts of partisan fraud and manipulation. Moreover, if administrative flaws arise on polling day, there are often minimal opportunities to correct them in a timely fashion, potentially damaging confidence in the electoral process and authorities.

Most attention to these sorts of problems has focused upon elections held in weak states, poorer developing societies, and contests held after regime transitions, but malpractice is by no means limited to these contexts. The ballot, voting machine, and counting problems emerging during the 2000 Bush v. Gore presidential election in the United States, and subsequent administrative reforms, motivated scholars to engage in this field Occasional incidents occur elsewhere, even in mature democracies with highly professional, experienced, and well-resourced electoral authorities. Senate elections, for example, the Australian Election Commission lost 1,370 votes during a recount, generating the need for a complete rerun in Western Australia. In Britain, the May 2014 local and European elections triggered police investigations concerning more than fifty cases of alleged fraud following complaints about “ghost” voters, multiple voting, and other flaws. In the 2011 Canadian federal election, in several ridings automatic “robocalls” attempted to misdirect electors about the location of polling places.