[EL] making a Democracy Index at the ballot box

[Doug Hess]

An idea I have thought about before, but not kicked around:

Administrative data resulting from elections and survey data on or around
election day provide information that can be used to inform a "Democracy
Index" (metrics on the quality of the election process), but what about
adding a few questions to the ballot to make it into a mini survey? For
instance, after you vote for the candidates, there could be a question that
says: How long did you wait in line today? Or whatever. It could then be
tabulated and reported with that precinct.

You would not have to ask everybody the same question, or even ask
everybody any question. Thus, it wouldn't intrude too much on the voters'
time...and it would not make the process at the precinct much longer
overall. Randomly distributing ballots within a precinct might be tricky
since it is not the usual, but there could be ways to ease this by the
printers. Or, it could be a stand-alone survey that people are given at
random and submit with their ballot.

Do any states or counties (or have any in the past) have an "election day
experience" survey and incorporate it into the election process itself?

On a related note: do precinct directors report data at the end of the day
on events at the precinct? E.g., number of people standing in line at
certain hours, etc.?

Doug
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