A sign directs residents to a polling place in Dearborn, Mich., on Aug. 4. Scott Olson/Getty Images hide caption

Scott Olson/Getty Images

There's one big difference, Tina Barton says, between running an election in a battleground state and a non-battleground.

It's what happens when there are mistakes.

"If a human error happens, it's easily explained in the press and it's not a story," Barton says. "You have a human error in a battleground state and all of a sudden it can become a massive conspiracy."

Barton would know.

In 2020, she oversaw elections as city clerk of Rochester Hills, Mich. On election night, her office mistakenly sent an unofficial absentee vote file twice because the first one didn't initially appear to send.

Such mistakes happen every election cycle in a national process run by tens of thousands of human beings. A machine isn't plugged in. A poll worker sleeps through their alarm clock and doesn't open a precinct on time.…