In-Person Voting in Elections

Research Studies

Academics and election officials have worked hard to understand what makes in-person voting run smoothly and what remains unknown. Below are brief summaries of some of these practical levers.

Reminders and cues that keep voters moving: Small, well-placed prompts prevent both errors and bottlenecks; remind voters of ID requirements before they arrive and again at check-in; guide voters to fill in the bubble rather than use a check mark; and provide unambiguous confirmation at the scanner ("Your ballot has been submitted"). Voters look forward to that waving American Flag, a check mark, or even a Pavlovian “ding”. (Links to Better Ballots report, Voting Technology: The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot, ballot-design field guides.)

Standardized layout, flow, and signage: Publish baseline requirements to ensure uniformity across all polling places and to reflect best practices in design and layout. This includes resource targets such as a specific number of booths per registered voter, a consistent step-by-step flow, distinct entrance and exit points, routes that prevent voters from crossing paths, and clear wayfinding signage at each step. (Links to Impact of facilities layout methods on in-person elections, layout design tool - tool requires login, signage toolkit.)

Pre-election "what to expect" communication: Access to sample ballots, available online or by mail, along with a simple "what to bring and what to expect" guide and an easy-to-use polling place locator helps reduce work on Election Day. Voters who preview the ballot can mark it more quickly, and those familiar with ID requirements and their polling places can avoid delays caused by questions. Additional resources in some states include a multilingual booklet mailed to every voter and available online that lists all candidates in every race, as well as information on all ballot measures (the full language of the measure, a simplified explanation, pros and cons, and potential impacts). (Links to ballot-design field guides, guidelines, polling-place locator.)

Text and SMS voter reminders: Opt-in text messages are a low-cost, high-reach way to deliver the right information to voters at the right moment. Potential alerts can include: an ID reminder the night before, a notice that a polling place has moved, hours and current wait times on Election Day morning, or an alert that a provisional ballot needs curing. They meet voters on the channel they already use for everything else. (Links to Text Message Reminders as a Mobilization Tool, Text Messages as Mobilization Tools, voter-communications toolkit, templates.)

Provisional-ballot status tracking: Mail-in voters who track their ballots build trust, and this approach can also be used for in-person voting, particularly for tracking the status of provisional ballots. When a voter submits a provisional ballot due to registration issues or a missing ID, they should be able to check whether it was counted and, if not, why. (Link to provisional ballot lookup tools.)

Ballot design quality across jurisdictions: Ballot design measurably affects error rates: a poorly laid-out ballot yields more overvotes and mismarked selections, and long ballots can push voters to undervote on measures or down-ballot races. Far less is known about how design quality varies across the country's thousands of jurisdictions, or which policy levels disseminate proven practices. An election office can review its residual votes by contest and usability-test the ballot before finalizing it. (Links to Ballot Design and Unrecorded Votes on Paper-Based Ballots, Ballot Position, Choice Fatigue, and Voter Behaviour, ballot-design guidance, checklist, testing guides.)

Trained, communicative poll workers: Confident workers who understand the process help reduce voter anxiety and prevent bottlenecks through proactive measures. Assign enough poll workers to keep all stations open, including those whose sole responsibility is to assist voters in navigating the process. These include a poll worker at the scanner (while maintaining legal distances) who reminds voters to slide their ballots out of the sleeves; check-in staff who direct voters to any available booth and explain how to mark their ballots; and a greeter who guides arrivals to open stations to prevent long lines from forming. (Links to Election Worker Recruitment, Training, Retention, and Evaluation, training resources, manuals toolkit.)

Queue and surge management: Turnout fluctuates across polling places because elections are local. Some sites experience a consistent morning or evening rush, or a lunch-break peak, while others peak at times that exceed their capacity based on the daily average. Therefore, modeling arrival patterns and staffing for these surges, rather than just the average, helps keep the longest lines under control. (Links to Waiting to Vote, What Queuing Theory Says About Managing Polling Places Amid Covid-19t, Presidential Commission  on Election Administration report, videos, morning-surge tool, resource calculator.)

Vote center implementation: The shift to vote centers is gaining momentum, but successful implementation is essential. Poor execution can lead to frustrating voter experiences and longer wait times. Current research is examining the conditions under which vote centers outperform traditional precincts and identifying potential failure points. Jurisdictions considering this change can initially run pilot programs at select sites during low-turnout elections, closely monitoring wait times and voter satisfaction compared with traditional precincts. This approach helps assess effectiveness before a full jurisdiction-wide rollout. Strategic communication by election officials to voters during this transition is critical to maintaining consistent voter engagement. (Links to Vote Centers and the Voter Experience, NCSL: Vote Centers, designing materials toolkit.)