Improving the In-Person Voting Experience

"Vote here" sign in focus in the background with people in the foreground out of focus exchanging papers
Last Updated:
July 8, 2026
Authors:
Gretchen A. Macht, Ph.D.
Partners:
Engineering for Democracy Institute at The University of Rhode Island

Key Ideas

How voters experience elections shapes the health of democracy itself, and in the United States, that experience still occurs primarily in person. Though much of that experience is beyond the control of election officials and policymakers, thoughtful design of in-person voting, both operationally and experientially, can build trust and strength in elections. The research below outlines practical steps to improve in-person voting to support fair, accurate, and efficient elections.

Our In-Person Voting in Elections: Key Ideas page examines the two different ways to think about and measure in-person voting in elections: operational features and the voter experience. They include:

  • How In-Person Voting is Studied

  • How In-Person Voting is Measured

  • What Research Finds

    • How Operations Impact In-Person Voting
    • How In-Person Voting Impacts Voter Experience

Read our Key Ideas

Common Questions

In-Person Voting in Elections: Common Questions provides quick answers to frequently asked questions related to in-person voting in elections. 

Read up on all our common questions here

Or, skim a few of the most frequently asked questions below: 

The link between the in-person voting experience and confidence in elections is well-documented. Voters generalize from their own experience at the polls to form judgments about how well elections are being run. Long wait times, confusing equipment, poor poll worker interactions, and inaccessible facilities all reduce confidence, not only in the specific election but in the overall integrity of election administration.  Other major factors influencing voter confidence are the “winner-loser effect” and statements by trusted officials.  For a more complete discussion about voter experience and voter confidence, see the Building Trust page on this Resource Hub. 

Most studies comparing voting modes across the United States find that in-person voters express greater confidence that their votes were accurately counted than vote-by-mail voters. This trend holds even after accounting for partisanship and other factors. The mechanism is intuitive because in-person voters can observe the process directly, hand their ballot to a poll worker or feed it into the scanner (or tabulation machine), and receive immediate confirmation. By contrast, vote-by-mail voters must rely on unobserved third parties to ensure their ballots arrive and are counted. Tools such as ballot tracking, curing processes, and livestreamed counting can partially increase transparency.

The Presidential Commission on Election Administration set the maximum acceptable voter wait time at 30 minutes. Most voters have wait times well below this threshold, although these times have varied over the years. .Election Day comparisons across years: 11% of Election Day voters waited over 30 minutes in 2024, compared with 14% in 2020; for early voters, it was 15% in 2024, down from 21% in 2020. 

Historically, wait times were generally longer in minority and higher-density precincts. In 2024, that gap disappeared, with Black, Hispanic, and white voters experiencing wait times over 30 minutes at similar rates (about 13% each). 

Research Studies

A growing body of research has produced practical, freely available tools that election officials can use to plan polling place resources, reduce wait times, and model the effects of operational decisions before Election Day. A majority of these tools apply methods from industrial engineering (e.g., queueing theory, discrete-event simulation, and optimization), ergonomics, or operations and maintenance to the specific problems of election administration. Most are free, web-based, and designed for use by election officials without specialized technical training.

Explore the operational and research tools that can help officials plan for Election Day:

Read our full research guide

Additional topics on improving in person voting can be found in the Resource Hub. 

 

Charles Stewart III, Stephen Graves, Aaron Strauss, Mark PelczarskiCaltech-MIT Voting Technology Project2015
In-Person Voting Tools
This resource is an open-access election management toolkit with calculators and tools to help election officials plan polling place resources, minimize wait times, and optimize poll worker and equipment allocation.
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U.S. Election Assistance Commission2023
In-Person Voting Tools
The Voting Location Resource Calculator is an interactive simulation tool that helps election officials estimate voter wait times and identify potential bottlenecks in the voting process. Officials can enter data on existing voting locations, including steps required to vote, layout, and equipment, to simulate current conditions or test changes to resources and processes. Based on observational data from U.S. elections from 2018 to 2024.
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Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions, Engineering for Democracy Institute2024
In-Person Voting Tools
This publicly available tool helps election offices plan for in-person voting by estimating voter wait times. Voters can also use it to estimate how long they will wait in line, based on factors such as ballot questions and polling place resources.
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Nathaniel Persily, Charles Stewart IIIStanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project2020
In-Person Voting Tools
This resource is a curated hub of tools developed by university researchers and the civic tech community to help election officials manage in-person polling place operations, including resource allocation, queue management, capacity planning with social distancing, and poll worker management.
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Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions, Engineering for Democracy Institute2025
In-Person Voting Tools
This publicly available interactive tool (currently in beta) allows election officials to map the layout and setup of voting equipment at an in-person polling location. Users can generate a custom, to-scale model of their space, incorporate key elements such as electrical outlets, doors, and windows, or select from common layout designs. Designs can be printed and shared with polling location leads to facilitate setup.
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Donald Palmer, Gretchen MachtU.S. Election Assistance Commission2023
In-Person Voting Videos
The SMILE series are instructional videos, based on over 8,000 simulations, that help election officials visualize cost-effective resource allocations for polling locations that keep wait times under 30 minutes. The series covers polling place consolidation, new equipment integration, and allocation of accessible voting technology.
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Center for Civic Design2021
In-Person Voting Workforce Tools
This toolkit helps election officials design and produce the materials poll workers need to set up and operate a polling place or vote center, including layout diagrams, signage, and procedural materials. It covers both traditional polling places and vote center models.
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Center for Inclusive Democracy2018
In-Person Voting Tools
The Voting Location and Outreach Tool is a publicly available tool that allows users to visualize data on the number, location, and historical use of Election Day vote centers and polling places, and to project equitable distributions of locations for upcoming elections.
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Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions2024
In-Person Voting Tools
This toolkit provides nonpartisan operational best practices and starter templates for social media, press releases, and voter-facing communications to help election offices respond to planned or unplanned polling place closures and maintain operational continuity.
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U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, Center for Tech and Civic Life2026
Workforce Tools
This resource, published by the U.S. Alliance for Elections Excellence in collaboration with the Center for Civic Design and the Elections Group, provides workbooks and templates for election officials to revise or build poll worker manuals from scratch. This toolkit is for anyone writing or updating their jurisdiction’s poll worker manuals.
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Center for Civic Design2020
In-Person Voting Tools
This tool provides eight key questions election officials should consider when designing or reviewing a ballot. These questions focus on layout, instructions, typography, and formatting to help minimize voter errors and undervoting.
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Center for Civic Design2015
Usability & Accessibility In-Person Voting Tools
This guide walks election officials through how to make election technologies such as online voter registration, polling place apps, and electronic poll books accessible to people with disabilities. It introduces the POUR principles as a framework for evaluating accessibility, recommends a layered testing approach for election systems, and points to free accessibility tools.
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U.S. Election Assistance Commission2026
In-Person Voting Tools
The Hand Count Workload Calculator is a simulation tool that helps election officials estimate the resources needed to conduct a hand count of ballots, whether for initial tabulation, an audit, or a recount. Officials can determine how many counting teams are needed to meet a deadline or how long a count will take with a fixed staff. Default timing data is based on observational data from a Northeastern state in November 2024.
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Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions, Engineering for Democracy Institute2025
In-Person Voting Trainings
This is a publicly available training module that helps election jurisdictions build data skills through hands-on R exercises. The program shows election offices how to transform operational data into actionable decisions, such as improving staffing, resource allocation, and the overall voting experience.
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Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions, Center for Tech and Civic Life, Elections Group, Protect Democracy2025
In-Person Voting Tools
This Publicly available, interactive tool helps election officials and their IT teams identify, understand, and prioritize cybersecurity solutions for their election operations.
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Next Guide

Building Trust in Elections