By Wendy Underhill
We've read a lot about long lines for voting since November's presidential election. (In fact, we've written a lot about them: see The Canvass, NCSL's elections-related newsletter, and State Legislatures, NCSL's flagship publication.)
Recently, we came across an analysis of voter lines that is more about seeing than reading. It is a humongous set of slides that slice and dice polling place data from Prince William County, Va., slides that "show" more than they "tell."
Some voters in Prince William County waited until after 10 pm to vote last November. Not surprisingly, a post mortem was ordered, and the job was handed to a bipartisan team, with poll worker Kim Brace as one of the team. (Brace is better known as the president of Election Data Services, Inc., a political consulting firm specializing in data relating to redistricting and election administration, but here he was acting in his civic role.)
The slides are worth reviewing for two key reasons. First, his data and maps show what factors correlated with long lines in Prince William county:
- More registered voters per precinct
- A greater proportion of new voters
- More voters who needed attention from a chief election judge (to confirm addresses, vote a provisional ballot or to deal with other special circumstances).
Brace makes no claim that we can extrapolate from Prince William's experience to other regions or jurisdictions. Each viewer can decide if these factors are worth considering on our own turf.
Second, the presentation gives us an idea of what data can do to help election administrators plan ahead. Brace's stuff is a Cadillac production that would be hard for most people to match, but others can at least roll out a Chevy version of election data analysis. It begins with gathering data, much of which is probably already on hand. What time do voters arrive? How much experience do the poll workers have? Which precincts have the highest number of newly registered voters? Then those data can be presented in various ways to see what conclusions jump out. Tables and bar charts are standard; to move up to mapping, administrators may need to tap GIS specialists, whether they work for other departments or are volunteers like Brace.
Lawmakers can help in at least two ways. They can permit jurisdictions to use electronic poll books, which are essentially laptops that speed voter check-in and automatically gather data; and they can set reporting requirements or standards for data collection.
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