<p>Two decades ago, scholars started articulating key ideas about how electoral system design affects administrative demands. Despite these postulates’ significance, their implication—that more costly and complex electoral systems lead to poorer performance in electoral administration—has yet to be systematically tested in practice. This article aims to address this gap by developing the expectations and testing them globally. Analysing four electoral systems in 82 elections, the results reveal that these theoretical expectations have been mostly overstated. Of 32 expected electoral system differences in administration, only seven were confirmed. Conversely, expected similarities were mostly confirmed. However, the latter results may be due to a lack of data. The effect of electoral systems can be mitigated by other means, such as EMB capacity or professional bureaucratic culture.</p>