Miles Parks for NPR:

Across the country, dozens of local officials this year are tasked with some role in certification who have shown an openness to refusing to do so, based on disproven or unsubstantiated election conspiracy theories, according to a recent report from the left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Despite that, election experts and the people actually in charge of tallying the votes are still projecting confidence in the certification process. That’s partly because of changes implemented since 2020 and partly because the legal system has shown an ability to be a backstop against political interference in the process.

“I’m feeling better than most people, but maybe that’s because I don’t freak out about things,” said Charles Stewart, an elections expert at MIT. “All the evidence is that state and federal courts have shut down election officials going beyond their authority and acting on hunches rather than evidence.”