[EL] making a Democracy Index at the ballot box

[Doug Hess]

Maybe. Such a cynic! :)  I was guessing that states might already require
officials to fill out something. No? I assume there's a procedure for
reporting problems, and confirming that this, that and the other thing
happened on time and correctly. E.g., "We had two machines go up in flames
when plugged in, and the screens on the other four show Bush vs Dukakis."

Funding to have independent observers could make it work better, I guess,
and somewhat independent of officials. Could be a good project for some
funders out there (cough cough) to organize with college students. Have
them drop in on precincts and fill out an observational survey at certain
hours. I don't know what advice they'd need to have minimal conflict with
precinct officials, but presumably there are ways to handle that in
advance...it's data the state and count officials should be happy to get.
No? Or have the party observers do it? Perhaps they are too busy elbowing
each other.

Douglas


On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 5:40 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:

>  And one might suspect that those administrators with the worst records
> would be least likely to conduct such a voluntary survey.
>
>
> On 5/7/2012 2:37 PM, Gerken, Heather wrote:
>
>  Dear Doug,****
>
> ** **
>
> I’ve made just such a proposal in my book (entitled, conveniently enough,
> The Democracy Index).   Putting the question on the ballot itself runs one
> into a set of tricky questions about what’s allowed to appear on the
> ballot.  But that doesn’t mean poll workers can’t hand out a sheet of paper
> and do a stand-alone survey with one or two questions on it.****
>
> ** **
>
> I know of a tiny handful of local administrators who conduct such a survey
> (Gary Smith of Forsyth County is one of them), but my own research suggests
> it’s decidedly not the norm.  The same is true of reporting how long the
> lines were – here again, there’s no widespread norm.****
>
> ** **
>
> Best,****
>
> ** **
>
> Heather****
>
> ** **
>
> Heather Gerken****
>
> J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law****
>
> Yale Law School****
>
> 127 Wall Street****
>
> New Haven CT  06511****
>
> ph (203) 432-8022****
>
> fax (203) 432-8095****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [
> mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>]
> *On Behalf Of *Doug Hess
> *Sent:* Monday, May 07, 2012 5:28 PM
> *To:* law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> *Subject:* [EL] making a Democracy Index at the ballot box****
>
> ** **
>
> 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 ****
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing listLaw-election at department-lists.uci.eduhttp://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
>
> --
> Rick Hasen
> Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
> UC Irvine School of Law
> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
> Irvine, CA 92697-8000
> 949.824.3072 - office
> 949.824.0495 - fax
> rhasen at law.uci.edu
> http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
> http://electionlawblog.org
>
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