[EL] making a Democracy Index at the ballot box

[Paul Lehto]

An overall "Democracy Index" is misleading.  Example: Jurisdiction
receives, logs, then loses a tray of 200 absentee ballots, thus
disfranchising 200 people.  If other parts of the election are just
slightly improved, the "Democracy Index" may be unchanged relative to other
years because the number of points assigned to chain of custody of absentee
ballots is perhaps only 5 out of the 100 point scale for the Democracy
Index.  But the loss of ballots is simply unacceptable and should never
happen again, nor be papered over with a "passing" index score.

*Enhancing data collected about elections is a good idea*.  But
incorporating that data into a "Democracy Index" is not the best idea,
because such an overall "index" is virtually certain to incorporate what
ought to be considered totally unacceptable into an overall index rating
that suggests acceptability.

Regardless of whether the Democracy Index disclaims this or not, an index
is sure to be a talking point that distracts attention from the specific
issues at hand by burying problems that must be addressed in a sea of "not
so bad."

So, it is a good idea to collect data, but a bad idea to incorporate that
into a Democracy Index.

Paul Lehto, J.D.

On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 5:27 PM, Doug Hess <douglasrhess at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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-- 
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box 1
Ishpeming, MI  49849
lehto.paul at gmail.com
906-204-4026 (cell)
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