Topic: Strategy

In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama brought national attention to ongoing problems in election administration and most notably long lines at polling places on Election Day with the quote above. What came next was the creation of the temporary Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA).

A year later, the PCEA released a report that recommended policies addressing some of the bigger problems in election administration. Since the release of the report, members of the PCEA have traveled the country speaking to audiences of election officials, lawmakers, and the public, hoping that its recommendations would catch on and find willing agents for implementing its changes.

In states and localities where election officials took the lead on implementing some of the recommendations, today’s midterm elections will be the first time voters experience new policies. The election community will be watching closely as the effects of three big recommendations—new online voter registration (OVR) systems, interstate exchanges of voter information, and mandated adoption of PCEA’s resource allocation tools for use at the local level—are tested.

The PCEA made it clear that the value of OVR cannot be overstated. At the time of the report, states with OVR experienced a reduction in voter information errors, which led to an increase in the accuracy of voter rolls and reduced wait times for voters. States also experienced a decrease in the number of provisional ballots issued, which can indicate problems with voter rolls. And now, with the addition of Illinois, Delaware, and Georgia, 20 states have OVR. Will these states see the same improvements, what else will they encounter?

Beyond the OVR benefits for voters who traditionally show up to vote, there are broad higher-level questions of how OVR affects voter confidence and turnout overall. Does the experience of registering to vote online translate to showing up to vote on Election Day, voting early, or casting an absentee ballot? Do online registration services such as provided by TurboVote or Rock the Vote employ other mechanisms for informing and engaging voters? These and other questions will be answered over the months and years to come.

The PCEA also recommended states participate in an interstate exchange of voter registration information. The Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) allows member states to check voter rolls against lists from other member states, in addition to state DMV records, the National Change of Address list, and the Social Security Administration. ERIC’s data matching program helps state election officials more confidently determine which voters should be removed due to a move out of the state, or death. All voters benefit from accurate rolls, and the goal of ERIC is to ensure that no voters are removed improperly.

ERIC also identifies potentially eligible individuals who have not yet registered to vote. ERIC member states are required to mail registration information to these individuals. The question to be answered: how many will register as a result and show up for this midterm? Pew’s initial responses show great promise for the ERIC system, but the impact and effectiveness will grow as the number of participants grow.

Long lines on Election Day 2013 were a major catalyst for the PCEA, but now there are several practical tools that local election officials can use to give voters a better, faster experience and do so with limited resources. A new toolkit includes a series of calculators that help estimate the appropriate ratios of volunteers, check-in stations, voting booths, and machines so that voters do not experience long waits.

In 2014, the Ohio Secretary of State’s office issued a directive requiring local Boards of Elections to create a plan for election administration. As part of this plan, administrators are strongly encouraged use the Election Toolkit to make resource allocation calculations.

Many in the election community are especially interested in the data and experience this will generate in Ohio because of the potential broad use of the tools. Will the tools effectively account for all of the variables of voter behavior and the environment of all varieties of polling places? Will other variables outside of an administrators control (length of the ballot, voter confusion, etc.) still cause long lines on Election Day? The answers will be here soon enough.

Finally, perhaps the greatest experiment occurring this Election Day in thousands of jurisdictions may answer the question that so many have been afraid to ask: will aging election equipment function properly through yet another election? Some jurisdictions are using Diebold Equipment even though Diebold is well out of the business of manufacturing voting systems. When will the threat of an election technology meltdown prompt a better way of voting?

If there was one warning that the PCEA issued, it is that election equipment purchased in the early 2000s is now nearing the end of its life cycle and yet, jurisdictions are still relying on it to meet high voter demands. It’s unclear how much longer these systems can be maintained by local election offices. It’s clear that there are innovative start-ups and that leading jurisdictions (LA County, CA and Travis County, TX) are working with their voters to imagine next-generation voting equipment. Where will elections look like in 2016? 2020?

In many ways, these questions are not going to be answered today, but will be determined by state & local election officials, advocates, voters and politicians who all share the goal of quality elections. We hope to work in collaboration with those who want to improve the process of making elections something worthy of our country’s history, encourages a process the gives every eligible voter a chance to cast that vote, and have that vote counted correctly.

Election Day, Cleveland, Ohio 2004. I participated in an election observation trip for the newly established U.S. Election Assistance Commission, travelling around Cuyahoga County, Ohio, from dawn until dusk. The goal was to observe as many different kinds of polling places as possible—more than a dozen locations that spanned Cleveland’s diverse neighborhoods. One polling place in particular sticks out in my mind as emblematic of the difficulties that we faced, then and now, in improving election administration. It was in a location in the east side of Cleveland—one with a higher percentage of African-American voters. Rain had started to fall, and while the line was long when we arrived—just before the lunchtime rush—it grew, snaking around the block so that the entrance to the polling place was no longer visible at the end of the line. What was the problem? After observing the polling place and talking to some of the frustrated poll workers, the answer soon became clear.

More than half of the voting stations—where voters were allowed to complete their ballots—were not set up and sat abandoned at the corner of the room. The chief poll worker saw that there was a greater number of voting system plugs compared to the electrical outlets in the polling place, and believed they only had power to assemble half of the machines. Sadly, no-one recognized that: (a) the voting machines could be plugged, one into the other, ‘daisy chain’ style and (b) that because the system of voting was the last of the ‘punch card’ system—the purpose of the electricity was not to ‘power’ the machine, but to operate the light on the top of a movable, privacy-enhanced portable table. These problems were not intractable. The first element of the problem could’ve been solved by clear instructions, better pollworker training, or clearly labeled election equipment. The second element of the problem could’ve been solved by ensuring that the polling booths were more closely placed near the ample windows in the polling place, using backup, battery powered lights, or asking voters to cope with the existing light inside the facility. There was no apparent effort to suppress the vote at that polling place—there was just poor education, poorly designed election equipment, and limited ‘fail-safes’ built into the system to fix the problem once it had been identified. If it could be identified.

Some have asked: what’s the harm with long lines? Isn’t democracy worth waiting for? Sure, and we all should be willing to put up with some level of inconvenience in order to cast our votes. No-one should expect voting to be instantaneous, but it is also unreasonable to suggest that voters must undergo a ‘red badge of courage’ –extreme personal inconvenience while waiting in line—in order to prove their patriotism. Many working men and women do not have schedules that allow them to wait for hours to vote. Americans make sacrifices to vote every time they leave work early, skip a comfortable lunch at their desk, or pay for an extra hour of babysitting service. Those sacrifices can be financial, personal or reputational. That much was clear in the rainy polling place in Cleveland. I overheard many cell phone conversations between folks waiting in line and their bosses—pleading that ‘they knew their lunch hour was over, but they’re almost to the front of the line.’ Exasperated voters would try to get the attention of poll workers and let them know they’d been in line over two hours. Dismay was palpable on the faces of folks who were about to get in trouble at work and needed to pick up their children, and with a huff, abandoned the line. The breakdown of order at that polling place challenged the faith in democracy of many that day, and many voters (at that precinct alone) left the lines without casting a ballot. They just ran out of time.

I raise this example from Ohio in 2004 because it highlights the complications that can occur from one key error in administration: the failure to deploy available voting machines. These mistakes are by no means representative of most election officials, or poll workers, who put in long hours for limited to no pay in service to our democracy. However, as we are looking to ways to improve our electoral processes, it’s important for every actor with responsibility to fully examine the fault lines in elections. Election administration seems like every other public administration challenge—except it’s different. It’s almost entirely staffed by temporary employees; it is governed by a host of local, state and federal legal requirements; ‘Election Day’ proper happens only once (without the ability to have a ‘do-over’); there is limited ability to control when voters try to access the service; and there is significant pressure for officials to ‘report’ initial results the very same day.

There are few other government functions that are required to operate with that size and scope, and under as big a microscope as elections. That is why a sustained focus on efforts to innovate and improve the process is necessary. A nine year old example is still relevant today, as we continue to struggle with problems of long lines, inaccuracy in registration, and limited adoption of cutting-edge technology. In this first of regular blog posts for the Democracy Fund site, it is my goal to try to highlight problems, complexities and opportunities in the administration of elections and issues related to the undue influence of money in politics, as well as showcase the work and research of the Democracy Fund’s grantees. In all of these areas, it is clear there is no silver bullet, just a variety of options and strategies that will improve the election process over time, and allow a more engaged public to work to improve the process. The more that officials can focus on best practices and improved metrics to judge whether or not our political processes are working, the better off we’ll be.

Anything that can be done to improve the structure of election administration and the campaign finance system is merely ‘setting of the stage’ for participation to occur. It is the candidates, the parties, the advocacy groups, and ultimately the citizens that must engage in the political process; to contribute (or not), to register (or not), to vote (or not) based on their views and circumstances. I would like to think that we look for ways to reduce artificial barriers, to support the local and state officers who run elections, to look for ways to ensure average Americans can engage and have a meaningful impact into the electoral process. That is what those voters in line on that rainy day in Ohio were hoping for; the ability to cast their ballots without undue delay, and then continue their daily routine.