Doug:

I few years back (in 2009), I did some research on election  performance standards at the state and local levels to see if there was anything comparable in spirit to the federal level performance evaluation efforts (namely those driven by the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)). In the research, I used GPRA and PART's conceptualizations of performance assessment (i.e. the setting up of clear agency/program goals as well as performance measures to track their progress, which are reported at regular intervals of time).

What I found at the time (and this may have changed since 2009) is that:

1. At the state level, state boards of elections issue annual reports that contain statistical data about election activities that report on the number of voting machines in use, the number of problems reported during the year, the length of interruptions in the voting process, the number of registered voters by party, demographic characteristics, or by source of registrations (such as department of motor vehicles, public assistance agencies, etc.).  Virginia, in particular, has built a fairly elaborate overall performance and accountability system, Virginia Performs, and has included the management of elections in the performance evaluation effort.

2.At the county level is where we can find performance measures, similar to those that one might expect to see in a GPRA or PART report, that track the performance of county boards of elections. Looking at a survey of performance standards used by counties, one can make the following conclusions:

1. Performance goals and measures used by counties in different states vary, but there are some common goals. Some goals are very concrete whereas others are broad. States’ election laws and practices differ and these differences are reflected in the performance goals and standards set by their counties. Some goals resonate across counties in different states, such as providing or increasing voter registration. Furthermore, outcomes/goals vary in terms of how vague or how concrete they are. An example of quite concrete performance goals are those of Fairfax County, Virginia, such as “to provide the legally mandated one voting machine for each 750 registered voters in each precinct with a minimum of three voting machines per precinct and a countywide average of 4.91 voting machines per precinct.” In contrast, New York’s Schuyler County uses the broad goal “ability to fully staff all polling with well trained, knowledgeable election inspectors.”
2. Performance goals and measures used by counties within the same state also vary. Counties finance the conduct of elections and seem to be determining what outcomes they hope to achieve and how to measure their performance not only across states, but also within states. Counties within the same state may use different performance goals and measures (see North Carolina’s Randolph and Wake counties). Considering this and the previous conclusion as well as the fact that there are about 3,100 counties, it is reasonable to assume that there could possibly be 3,100 different sets of performance goals and measures.
3. Performance goals and measures used by the same county can change from year to year. For example, the Randolph County Elections Office specifies in its annual report that beginning with the 2005-06 fiscal year, the measure for their goal “to alleviate crowded conditions at polling places on Election Day” will change from “percent of votes cast reconciled with number of voters on Canvass Day” to “number of voters participating in one-stop voting” since it was deemed that the former did not actually measure the goal. Similarly, beginning with the 2005-06 fiscal year, the goal “to inform voters of changes in absentee laws and requirements”  and measure “percent of advertisements which were placed in local media as directed by NC General Statutes” changed to “to inform voters of one-stop voting opportunities” and the measure to “number of local newspapers publishing articles on one-stop voting.” The goal was replaced since informing voters of changes in absentee laws and requirements are required by law and thus, are always done.

 4.              4. Counties and city governments play the central role in assessing election administration performance. The reviewed                         performance assessments appear to be part of annual reports and annual budgets issued by county or in some cases (as in the case of                 Minneapolis City) by city governments.  

Hope the above can be of some assistance!

Best,

Vassia