Throughout the past 2 years, I have been working with the Engineering for Democracy Institute on a variety of VERY different projects. From leading our social media and communications team and promoting the STEM for Elections Network to evaluating different floor plans for election offices and understanding new process implementation for in-person elections, my time at EDI has been far from boring.
Most notably, for my master’s thesis, I investigated the operational differences between three different US voting systems with different levels of technological integration. I used processing times from observational time studies, then input those into a discrete-event simulation model to investigate the effect of voting equipment type on voting process performance. Specifically, I looked at the impacts on total wait time, wait times per station, total time in system, the number in system, and the percentage of time that the voters spend in queue.
Results found that all three systems are statistically different from each other (with the exception of one pairwise comparison between check-in stations) and that the paper-based voting process experiences longer voter wait times at ballot marking than alternative processes when controlling for the quantity of voting equipment. However, all elections are different, and sometimes voter turnout is not the same. I then found that as turnout increases and resource allocation is not adjusted, wait times compound dramatically. These findings reinforce that election planning and policies must be flexible and able to account for the voting equipment type to effectively serve voters.
Throughout this experience, I learned so much about how to work in a dynamic, interdisciplinary team, communicate effectively, and how to be a leader both in and outside the classroom setting. I have learned how to navigate new software, different programming languages, and how industrial and systems engineering can apply to so many different fields. I have become a much more informed citizen, and it has been a truly life-changing experience.
Signing off – for now 😉
Written by Gianna Wadowski