Municipal elections do occur on a schedule here, but I don't think that's relevant since it's hyper local.
Pretty much without fail, any election that isn't a presidential one has lower turnout if not also scheduled with the presidential one, since many Americans will only show up for the presidential elections. Which is why the ballots tend to be long.
Granted, I don't think this makes them very complicated; my ballot had plenty of offices this year, and it was essentially a one-page double sided bubble sheet, with accompanying voter guides sent in the mail. It's not very hard.
Generally speaking, in most US states the person certifying the election result is the Secretary of State, an elected official elected while affiliated to a party. There was a whole brouhaha when Brian Kemp was running for governor of Georgia while also the Secretary of State, because that looked like a conflict of interest in a hotly contested election.
Judges shouldn't be appointed by the fed but be randomized by computers for a database of vetted lawyers/judges who could assume the role, and all federal judges only serve for the case they're called in for (basically reverse jury duty).
My Washington ballot this year was a double-sided single page bubble sheet. I'm not sure how much easier it's supposed to get.
The US ones can be multiple pages where you end up voting for a dozen candidates across multiple federal, state and local offices, plus a number of ballot initiatives. It's kind of nuts.
But I agree the old fashion paper and pen is the best system. It doesn't matter how theoretically secure some high-tech digital voting system is - unless every voter can understand how it works you'll always have people who think it's fixed. Actually, even with paper and pen people will think it's fixed, but you at least eliminate a ton of the unknown because of the physical record.