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Election Process Quality—Four Years Later

October 29, 2004

Problems with voting systems, processes and equipment continue to cast a cloud over the upcoming 2004 elections in the United States. Many of the same issues that plagued the 2000 national elections are still unresolved, and some new twists have emerged as well. It has been nearly four years since the American Society for Quality issued its first election process quality report and testimony to Congress, which included some of these key points:

  • Agreement on and understanding of the elements that define quality in the voting process.
  • Standardization of processes.
  • Strong emphasis on education of election workers and the public so that the human element in election processes is not overshadowed in a rush to buy hardware in order to fix current problems.
  • Study of voting systems by independent experts under the auspices of an independent, nonpartisan commission.
  • Employment of quality methods for election process management and problem solving, and the employment of expertise and experience in quality management systems standards.
  • A multiplicity of approaches carried out within a system of voluntary standards to achieve effective and fair solutions to current election problems and to promote continuing improvement and innovation in the years to some.
  • Commitment—i.e., developing the will to improve systematically and the will to apply needed resources to the task.

The points ASQ made then are valid today. And while some of the concerns expressed at the time have been addressed, many others have not. Progress in applying quality principles to election processes and practices has been frustratingly slow.

The nation’s primary response to the 2000 election problems was passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA).

ASQ was pleased to see that our recommendation for the establishment of a nationwide nonpartisan commission was achieved when this legislation established the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). We believed that EAC would be the vehicle that would introduce quality methodologies into the election reform process. However, to date the Commission has not been fully funded, and many of its activities that were mandated under HAVA have yet to be accomplished.

Against this backdrop, voting problems remain unsolved, including some of the most urgent ones looming over the current election cycle:

1.) Problems with electronic voting machines. The security of these machines has been called into question; critics maintain they are susceptible to fraud through unauthorized access to and manipulation of software. And electronic machines that lack the ability to produce an auditable paper record of votes cast would cause problems if anomalies are detected or there is reason to conduct a recount. Critics claim there are fewer safeguards built in to these machines than in electronic gambling machines and bank ATMs. There is also cause for concern about the accuracy and reliability of these machines. Touchscreen voting machines performed worse than optical scanners in the 2004 Florida Democratic primary. To make matters worse, states and localities are making purchases of new voting machinery without the benefit of promised guidelines from the EAC. A large part of the hundreds of millions of dollars of HAVA funds already disbursed by the General Services Administration to the states has been designated for the purchase of equipment to replace punchcard and lever voting machines, even though the EAC, due to lack of funding, has yet to issue equipment guidelines or conduct programs for testing election equipment and technology.

2.) Inadequately trained poll workers, and other human-factors issues. The soft issues of training and education sometimes get less attention in improvement efforts than the usually more apparent hardware issues—and can offer greater payback than comparable investment in hardware. Training of poll workers in registration and identification requirements is critical, as is training in the proper use of new hardware.
There also is greater need to pay attention to documentation and procedures, including protocols for securing ballots and equipment before, during, and after voting, and procedures covering what to do when problems occur.

For example, election officials at some Florida polling places in the September 2004 primary elections turned away voters who could not produce photo identification, without offering them the alternative, permitted under Florida law, of allowing them to vote after signing an affidavit swearing to their identity. In June elections in South Dakota, the same thing happened—voters without identification were turned away even though state law allowed them to vote after signing affidavits.

Some of the problems encountered with electronic voting systems have been the result of human error on the part of election workers. In March, voters in San Diego County were turned away from polls when poll workers encountered problems starting up new electronic voting machines. Poll workers turned on card readers and were confronted with an unfamiliar start-up screen, which prevented them from preparing the access cards that voters insert to open the voting terminal and pull up the correct ballot. Polls in Dekalb and Irwin counties in Georgia were ordered to stay open an extra hour because election workers could not figure out how to program the access cards. And the results of a board of education race in Glynn County, Georgia, were thrown out by a judge after poll workers posted a misleading sign that wrongly told voters the election had been halted as the result of a pending lawsuit.

3.) Inadequate safeguards against fraud in absentee voting and early voting.
There is wide variation in states’ procedures for safeguarding against fraud and for regulating and monitoring the involvement of partisan politicians in the management and administration of election systems and voting procedures. Defining and promoting best practices in this regard would be a helpful role that the EAC should be performing.

The Help America Vote Act provided a reasonable framework for addressing all of these issues. Funding the Act’s mandated programs and activities will address ASQ’s concerns about unfinished election reform business. Specifically, ASQ recommends:

1.) Full funding for payments to the states for such things as training poll workers, providing voter education, and improving administration of elections—activities that are at least as important as upgrading voting systems hardware;
2.) Funding to support the joint work of the EAC and the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the development of updated voluntary voting system guidelines, the accreditation of national laboratories to test voting systems and equipment, and the distribution of grants for voting technology improvements and pilot programs for testing election technology and equipment;
3.) Expediting the work of the EAC Standards Board, Board of Advisors, and Technical Guidelines Development Committee, which met for the first time this summer. It is through the work of these boards that process management and quality management standards will be given their proper attention in the election improvement process. These groups are needed to secure the involvement and expertise of the nation’s voluntary sector in the important work of election process improvement.