[Screenshot image via bipartisanpolicy]

It’s Election Day across the nation, and for many voters that could mean waiting in line to cast a ballot. John Fortier and Don Palmer of the Bipartisan Policy Center have a new post on Medium describing the work they’re doing in Virginia and elsewhere to help election officials track lines so voters can avoid some or all of the wait:

When Virginia voters go to the polls on Tuesday they have a lot to consider when making their selections. But one thing they should not worry about is their experience at the polling place, especially concerns about long lines to cast ballots. More than any other state in the country, Virginia is at the forefront of monitoring polling place lines and finding new ways to improve the voting process in the future.

Virginia joined the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Data Collection Project in 2014 and again in 2016 to investigate lines at polling places to resolve any problems in the future. The new data below show that just a small amount of effort is needed to gather information that can be valuable to addressing the problem of long lines at polling places.

The task was simple. At every hour, election officials simply counted the number of voters in line and indicated the number of check-in stations available. Those two pieces of observed data along with the number of people voting allowed us to calculate accurate wait time estimates.

In 2012 according to data collected biannually in MIT’s Survey of the Performance of American Elections, more than 30 percent of Virginia voters reported experiencing a problem at the polling place, and at an average of 24 minutes, Virginians waited longer in line to vote than voters in all but five states. By 2016, after enacting many recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, only about 10 percent of voters reported experiencing a problem at the polls and average line waits were below ten minutes, according to our new data.

The data from the BPC-MIT project provide unique insight into which precincts see high turnout at a given time of day and why longer lines form at given points throughout the day. Election officials receive reports that provide information to allow them to more efficiently and effectively allocate resources to the precincts most in need.

Fairfax County General Registrar Cameron Sasnett, who participated in the program, noted that, “working with the Bipartisan Policy Center and MIT has provided us with definitive data that allows us to make staffing adjustments that are more appropriate for our polling places and voters.” He adds that, “the processes of tracking and counting have been seamlessly integrated into our precinct Election Day operations for the future.”

The data already shows that one preconceived notion – that voting in the morning can help avoid lines later in the day – is wrong:

Seventeen cities and counties in Virginia participated in the program in 2016 representing more than two million registered voters. The average wait time across those participants was less than nine minutes. Overall, nearly 95 percent of voters waited less than 30 minutes to vote. Interestingly, almost all the lines occurred exclusively in the morning with far less afternoon and evening voting, which cuts against popularly held beliefs that one must vote before work or else wait in lengthy lines afterwards.

Lengthy polling place lines are not pre-ordained — they can be addressed once they are identified. The problem in the past has been how to systematically and routinely identify problems with long lines at individual precincts. Past survey data tells us much about the Commonwealth of Virginia. But it does not tell us what is happening at individual precincts in Fairfax or York counties, for example. For that, we need data from every precinct, in counties and cities from jurisdictions across the state.

That is why BPC and MIT joined to investigate voter line problems at polling places in greater detail and will release a final report on 2016 before year-end. The Virginia statistics mentioned here are just a small portion of the data collected last year.

Virginia continues to use the data to improve its election operations:

Virginia wasn’t satisfied with the great improvement already seen at its polling places, which is why the state is participating in the Election Line Data Collection program again [Tuesday]. It is just a good practice for election officials in Virginia — and across the country — to collect these data and for researchers to analyze where improvements can be made.

We encourage all Virginia voters to come out [Tuesday] and exercise their democratic freedoms. When the polls open in the morning, there may be some congestion for those wanting to vote before commuting to work, and election officials across the state are monitoring polling place operations. However, if you want to avoid longer lines, vote a little later in the day. That’s what the data show.

This work – in Virginia and elsewhere – is one of the most successful efforts to understand voting from the voters’ perspective that I’ve ever seen. Kudos to the BPC team and the researchers at MIT (led by Charles Stewart) for continuing and expanding this research. I look forward to the report on 2016 and any insight they have about lines in Virginia and elsewhere today. Stay tuned!

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