Resources

In this paper, authors use a national survey of poll workers from the 2022 midterm election to analyze whether there are systematic differences between experienced and inexperienced poll workers in how they manage polling sites. They finds that experienced poll workers are more likely to say that their training prepared them for the election, yet their experience also correlates with more conflicts involving poll watchers and voters. This research fills a crucial gap in understanding how poll workers' experience influences Election Day operations.

This report is a comprehensive reference for election officials on election processes and best practices, including guidance on physical security and location management for polling places. It serves as the primary federal-level guidance on polling place operations in the absence of national layout standards.

The biennial comprehensive survey of election administration across all 50 states, five territories, and D.C., covering the 2024 presidential general election, achieved a 100% response rate. Key in-person voting findings include: more than 70% of voters cast ballots in person, split roughly evenly between Election Day and early in-person voting; mail ballot use declined to approximately 30%, down from 43% in 2020; more than 770,000 individuals served as poll workers; all states reported offering some form of in-person voting before Election Day; and ballot drop box use increased by nearly 10 percentage points from 2022 to 2024 in states that offered them. Two-thirds of voters cast ballots in person, reflecting a significant post-pandemic return to in-person voting. The survey also covers voter registration, UOCAVA voting, absentee voting, provisional balloting, and voting technology.

This paper synthesizes best practices for in-person voting across polling place access, check-in and wait times, polling place layout and design, ballot design, and the voter experience.

In this MS thesis, Fry examines the accessibility of in-person voting equipment, specifically Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) and Direct Recording Electronics (DREs), across U.S. elections from 2000 to 2024. She uses data from Verified Voting, the U.S. Census Bureau, and BMD/DRE manufacturers to analyze trends in the deployment of accessible equipment and to evaluate current systems against VVSG 2.0 Principle 7 (the right to vote privately and independently). The author finds that although accessible equipment coverage has improved substantially since HAVA, significant gaps remain in meeting current usability and accessibility standards.

In this MS thesis, the author investigates how voting equipment type (paper ballots, optical scan, and ballot marking devices) affects voting process performance across three elections at three locations. They use observational time studies and discrete-event simulation to model how different voting systems affect voter wait times, throughput, and overall process efficiency. The author find that performance improvements from adopting newer voting technologies are inconsistent across election contexts.

This report details how American voters experienced the 2024 general election. It is based on a survey of 10,200 registered voters, including 200 from each state plus D.C. Key findings from in-person voting include: over 70% of voters voted in person; mail-in voting decreased to 29% from 43% in 2020; wait times for voting were mostly short, but some disparities remained; and public schools saw a decline as polling locations, with community centers becoming the most common alternative.

In this paper, authors invite the human factors and ergonomics community to engage with election administration research. The paper describes the complexity and scale of U.S. election administration and identifies open research challenges where human factors expertise is directly applicable, including accessible design, poll worker training, and error minimization.

This report provides a comprehensive update to the EAC's landmark poll worker reports from 2007 and 2016, based on current data across four key areas: recruitment, training, retention, and evaluation. It captures the significantly transformed landscape of poll worker management since 2020, addressing new challenges like workforce shortages, threats against election workers, and the adoption of emerging technologies. The report also highlights state-by-state practices and emerging best practices from jurisdictions nationwide.

This paper demonstrates that layout method and path directionality significantly affect average voter travel distance within a polling place and presents ways layout can be used to design more efficient in-person voting systems.

In this PhD dissertation, Houghton develops advanced algorithmic methods to model voter arrival behavior and vote center utilization to support election resource and capacity planning. Three core contributions: (1) compares voters’ demographic characteristics across three vote center types during the 11-day voting period across multiple elections; (2) analyzes how voters choose among multiple available vote center locations by using graph-based methods to analyze network data and perform statistical community detection; and (3) uses spatial access metrics as input to a genetic algorithm to optimize location selection for vote center siting decisions.

In this paper, authors use simulation to study how COVID-19-era polling location consolidation strategies affected voter wait times and resource allocation in Rhode Island, with lessons for future election planning.