On Tuesday night, November 6, 2012, President Obama
addressed the nation briefly to thank the voters who re-elected him for his
second term. He was especially appreciative of those voters who stood in long
lines and waited to have their say. Then, after a pause, he commented “we have
to fix that.”
A few months later he issued an Executive Order establishing
the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA). Its mission was,
in part, to find ways “to promote the efficient administration of elections” so
that people can vote “without undue delay.” After six months of hearings, both
public and private, and receiving written comments from the public, the PCEA
issued its final report in January 2014.*
The Problem
The PCEA Report explained that the “image of voters waiting
for six or more hours to vote on Election Day 2012, as in the two previous
Presidential contests, spurred the call for reform that led to [the] creation
of this Commission.”(p13) Indeed, “over
five million voters in 2012 experienced wait times exceeding one hour and an
additional five million waited between a half hour and an hour. In some
jurisdictions, the problem has recurred for several presidential elections.”(p13)
For instance, at least a third of Virginia voters had to wait more than a half
hour in both the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections. (See note 22)
Proposed solutions
Of course, the most obvious 21st Century “fix”
for the problem of time wasting long lines at the polls is to supplement the
use of polling places with Internet voting. Then voters could vote from home,
or any where else, and at any time of the day or night. They could use their PC,
smart phone, iPad, or other connected device. No one would have to take time
from work, wait for the bus, or if driving, fight traffic, find parking, then stand
in the November rain and cold, or miss the opportunity to vote because they had
to travel, or were away at school, or were housebound due to illness,
infirmity, or the need to care for someone, such as small children, the sick,
elderly, had to work over-time, were in the military and stationed far away
from home, etc.
Unhappily, the Commission dismissed this option with little
more than a parenthetic quip – “the internet is not yet secure enough for voting.”(p60)
That was it. No research was cited showing that the integrity of any actual
online election had ever been marred by a security breach. No mention was made
that Internet voting has been used in over 100 elections to public office
around the world, all without the results altered by hackers.^
The Report instead declared its aim to preserve the time
honored tradition of voting at remote polling places, and finding ways to
reduce waiting times by making the process more efficient, especially through
“the management of lines.” (p14) The pair of Washington lawyers President Obama
selected to chair the PCAE found lines to be an intriguing subject. Thus, the Report paid special attention to the
research coming out of “Queuing Theory;” that is, the academic field of
examining the causes and cures of long lines.
Perhaps having an epiphany after weeks of studying Queuing
Theory, our lawyers solemnly proclaimed, “The Commission has concluded that,
as a general rule, no voter should have to wait more than half an hour in order
to have an opportunity to vote.”(p14) By the efficient management of lines,
then, our nation’s 8000 election districts will be able to comply with the
Report’s edict.
One of the Laws of Queuing Theory, developed after years of
research, is that long lines can be caused by a lot of people showing up at the
same time. Wizened by its studies, the Report recognized that “there will be
circumstances that strain this goal [of half hour waits], such as when a
busload of people shows up unexpectedly at a polling location, or a
hundred-person line of enthusiastic voters is waiting to greet the poll worker
who opens the polling place in the morning.”(p14)
“Nonetheless,” to comply with this decree, “local officials
should be able to plan the allocation of their resources such that during the
normal course of the day, nearly all voters can be processed within the
30-minute standard. Any wait time that exceeds this half-hour standard is an
indication that something is amiss and that corrective measures should be
deployed.”(p14)
Addressing themselves to state and local election officials,
the Chairmen explain that Queuing Theory requires “a more efficient allocation
of resources;” such as putting more machines and more poll workers at the most
heavily trafficked polling places. Also, those officials should have better
trained poll workers, and use more student volunteers. The officials themselves
need better education; hence, the Report calls upon colleges to offer a
Master’s Degree in Public Administration that focuses on polling place
management, because “election administration is public administration.”(p18)
Election officials should also provide shorter ballots, more
polling places, use more school buildings, and set up vote centers in which any
eligible person can vote, even if outside of his or her district. Voters could
make an appointment to come in and vote; or “take a number,” like at the local
bakery. Then they wouldn’t have to wait
in a line until their number is called. (p37f) Indeed, using the number system folks could
stand around the table serving coffee and doughnuts and engage in civic
discourse! Time would fly!
The Report approves of vote-by-mail systems, because there
is no waiting in line at polling places. But this practice relies on the Postal
Service, and has huge costs for paper, printing, mailing, and clerk hours spent
shuffling the paper ballots as they come in the mail. The PCEA strongly endorses “early voting;”
that is, having polls open a few days before Election Day to satisfy the urges
of eager voters. Queuing Theory has found that these early voters wait in line
“in a more ‘celebratory’ frame of mind.”(p56) Indeed, one of the aims of
Queuing Theory is to have happy waiters.
To that very end, the Report unabashedly extols the virtues
of OVR – online voter registration. Paper-based registration systems cause over
half the delays at polling places. Poll workers have to search long lists of
voters. The lists often have errors made by clerks, or because the voter moved
and neglected to re-register. Then complicated provisional ballots have to be issued. But computer-based registration is easy to
do, accurate, and allows poll workers to check registration in no time on
e-poll books. In fact, the Report recommends that states exchange voter
information online to reduce errors, catch up on who has died, who has moved
without re-registering, and to prevent duplicate registrations, and “to detect
election fraud or irregularities.”(p22)
County and local election officials spend roughly one-third
of their budgets on paper based registration. But states already using OVR are saving tons
of money because they have eliminated the costs of paper and printing, and they
need fewer clerks and filing cabinets.(p26)
Perhaps forgetting what it said about online voting, the
Report expresses full confidence in the security of online voter registration,
and “strongly recommends” its use.(p27) The Commission is not naïve, and
understands that as with “any web-based system, questions about security will
require close attention to ensure that unauthorized changes to voter
registration cannot be made.”(p25) But
OVR is so reliable that it “reduces the chances of fraud and other
irregularities of a paper-based system, in which outside groups may destroy registration
forms or submit fraudulent registrations.”(p27) Privacy need not be a concern
because these systems “have shown the ability to safeguard any voter information
they receive.”(p29)
Best of all for our democracy, voters who register online
turn out to vote in greater percents than voters who have registered by paper.
“In Arizona in 2008, 94 percent of online registrants voted compared to 85
percent of those who registered by paper.” (p26) Young voters also register and
vote more where OVR is offered. (See p26 and note 64, p79)
Small wonder that, “as demonstrated by the wide and growing
popularity of online registration, voters seem to have confidence in such
systems. This is not surprising when an increasing number of voters are using
the internet to manage many core functions of their everyday lives.”(p25)
Of course, the “core function” of voting cannot be done on
the Internet, but must still be centered on the trek to the remote polling
place, where half hour waits are fine. By taking that position, the Report
implicates questions that it fails to either ask or answer. For example, is a
half hour wait always OK? What if you
had to wait a half hour to buy a book on Amazon? Or, wait a half hour for each
bill you paid online? What about at a traffic light? Or, at the grocery store
check out counter?
Things to do while
Waiting in Line to Vote
You can use your smart phone, iPad, or other connected
device, to buy a book on Amazon, or pay bills, sell stocks, etc. You can tweet your location and complain
about how long the line is. (Use the hash tag #wastingtimeinline.) Check on
your Face Book friends. You can text a sympathizing message to friends who have
longer waits at other polling places, or enjoy discovering that folks you are
less friendly towards have to wait longer than you do. You and your fellow
waiters can order a pizza online and have it delivered to your place in line.
As mentioned, some county’s have a voting center to which
any county resident, who is registered, can go to vote. Some counties also post
waiting times on their website on Election Day. So, if you get tired of waiting
at your assigned polling place, and you are one of the lucky ones, then you can
go online to check if the wait is shorter at the voting center. Of course,
standing in line searching with electronic devices to find a shorter line seems
absurd when lines themselves are no longer necessary due to that very
technology.
Conclusion
The Report notes that the voting machines purchased by many
states over 10 years ago “are reaching the end of their operational life.”(p11)
It prudently advises that it is time to
think about replacing them. But it
acknowledges a dilemma. Local officials
often report dissatisfaction with those machines; especially since they are very
expensive, only used for occasional elections, and must be stored and maintained
for the rest of the time.(p12) Many of
the machines also print out paper copies of the vote, which only perpetuates
all the problems of dealing with piles of paper.
Of course, administering elections online would be much more
efficient and cheaper. States and counties would not have to buy dozens, often
hundreds of machines for voters to vote on, but which sit in rented storage
most of the time. Instead, officials could use existing computers, and the
voters would vote on their own electronic devices. This would eliminate the
current costs of paper, printing, and mailing, as well as slash the amount of
equipment needed and the costs of storage and maintenance. The Report observes
that one of the main obstacles to making this cost saving move is the
opposition of some in “the computer science community” over their security
concerns.(p12) But the Report fails to mention that those opponents of Internet
voting have never built a successful online voting system, while those members
of “the computer science community” who have done so favor the idea.
The Report also fails to mention that online voting is
better for the environment than is voting by mail, or trekking to polling
places whether to vote on paper or on a machine that prints out a page of paper
for every vote. Paperless voting would not only save trees, but there would be
no trash to dispose of after the election. Air pollution would be reduced when
voters can vote from home or anywhere else, without having to make that trek in
their cars.
Our two Washington lawyers, one Dem, one Repub, are very
proud of the “unanimity” of their decision.(p22) But one look at their Report shows that by
neglecting the most obvious fix for the convenience of the American voter,
their unanimous decision comes down to “let them eat cake.” We of the 21st Century deserve
more regard than that!
^See the 2011 US Election Assistance Commission Survey of
Internet Voting at
*********************
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Political Scientist, author, speaker,
CEO for The Internet Voting Research and Education Fund
Twitter: wjkno1
Author of Internet
Voting Now!
