Holding a Presidential election during a pandemic is not simple, and election officials are considering new procedures to support elections and minimize COVID-19 transmission risks. I became award of these issues earlier this summer, when I had a fascinating conversation with Professor Barry Burden about queueing, location analysis, and Presidential elections. Professor Burden is a professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a founding director of the Elections Research Center, and an election expert.

I was intrigued by the relevance of location analysis and queueing theory in this important and timely problem in public sector critical infrastructure (elections are critical infrastructure). I looked into the issue further with Adam Schmidt, a PhD student in my lab. We created a detailed discrete event simulation model of in-person voting, and we analyzed it using a detailed study.

We present an executive summary of our paper below. Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12985436.v1

Resilient voting systems during the COVID-19 pandemic:
A discrete event simulation approach

Adam Schmidt and Laura A. Albert
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Industrial and Systems Engineering
1513 University Avenue
Madison, Wisconsin 53706
laura@engr.wisc.edu
September 21, 2020

Executive Summary

The 2020 General Election will occur during a global outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. Planning for an election requires months of preparation to ensure that voting is effective, equitable, accessible, and that the risk from the COVID-19 virus to voters and poll workers is minimal. Preparing for the 2020 General Election is challenging given these multiple objectives and the time required to implement mitigating strategies.

The Spring 2020 Election and Presidential Preference Primary on April 7, 2020 in Wisconsin occurred during the statewide “Stay-at-home” order associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. This election was extraordinarily challenging for election officials, poll workers, and voters. The 2020 Wisconsin Spring Primary experienced a record-setting number of ballots cast by mail, and some polling locations experienced long waiting times caused by consolidated polling locations and longer-than-typical check-in and voting times due to increased social distancing and protective measures. A number of lawsuits followed the 2020 Wisconsin Spring Primary, highlighting the need for more robust planning for the 2020 General Election on November 3, 2020.

This paper studies how to design and operate in-person voting for the 2020 General Election. We consider and evaluate different design alternatives using discrete event simulation, since this methodology captures the key facets of how voters cast their votes and has been widely used in the scientific literature to model voting systems. Through a discrete event simulation analysis, we identify election design principles that are likely to have short wait times, have a low-risk of COVID-19 transmission for voters and poll workers, and can accommodate sanitation procedures and personal protective equipment (PPE).

We analyze a case study based on Milwaukee, Wisconsin data. The analysis considers different election conditions, including different levels of voter turnout, early voting participation, the number of check-in booths, and the polling location capacity to consider a range of operating conditions. Additionally, we evaluate the impact of COVID-19 protective measures on check-in and voting times. We consider several design choices for mitigating the risks of long wait times and the risks of the COVID-19 virus, including consolidating polling locations to a small number of locations, using an National Basketball Association (NBA) arena as an alternative polling location, and implementing a priority queue for voters who are at high-risk for severe illness from COVID-19.

As we look toward the General Election on November 3, 2020, we make the following observations based on the discrete event simulation results that consider a variety of voting conditions using the Milwaukee case study.

1. Many polling locations may experience unprecedented waiting times, which can be caused by at least one of three main factors: 1) a high turnout for in-person voting on Election Day, 2) not having enough poll workers to staff an adequate number of check-in booths, 3) an increased time spent checking in, marking a ballot, and submitting a ballot due to personal protective equipment (PPE) usage and other protective measures taken to reduce COVID-19 transmission. Any one of these factors is enough to result in long wait times, and as a result, election officials must implement strategies to mitigate all three of these factors.
2. The amount of time spent inside may be long enough for voters to acquire the COVID-19 virus. The risk to voters and poll workers from COVID-19 can be mitigated by adopting strategies to reduce voter wait times, especially for those who are at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19, and encourage physical distancing through the placement and spacing of voting booths.
3. Consolidating polling locations into a few large polling locations offers the potential to use fewer poll workers and decrease average voter wait times. However, the consolidated polling locations likely cannot support the large number of check-in booths required to maintain low voter wait times without creating confusion for voters and interfering with the socially distant placement of check-in and voting booths. As a result, consolidated polling locations require high levels of staffing and could result in long voter wait times.
4. The NBA has offered the use of its basketball arenas as an alternative polling location for voters to use on Election Day as a resource to mitigate long voter wait times. An NBA arena introduces complexity into the voting process, since all voters have a choice between their standard polling location and the arena. This could create a mismatch between where voters choose to vote and where resources are allocated. As a result, some voters may face long wait times at both locations.

We recommend that entities overseeing elections make the following preparations for the 2020 General Election. Our recommendations have five main elements:

1. More poll workers are required for the 2020 General Election than for previous presidential elections. Protective measures such as sanitation of voting booths and PPE usage to reduce COVID-19 transmission will lead to slightly longer times for voters to check-in and to fill out ballots, possibly causing unprecedented waiting times at many polling locations if in-person voter turnout on Election Day is high. We recommend having enough poll workers to staff one additional check-in booth per polling location (based on prior presidential elections or based on what election management toolkits recommend), to sanitize voting areas and to manage lines outside of polling locations.
2. To reduce the transmission of COVID-19 to vulnerable populations during the voting process, election officials should consider the use of a priority queue, where voters who self-identify as being at high-risk for severe illness from COVID-19 (e.g., voters with compromised immune systems) can enter the front of the check-in queue.
3. In-person voting on Election Day should occur at the standard polling locations instead of at consolidated polling locations. Consolidated polling locations require many check-in booths to ensure short voting queues, and doing so requires high staffing levels. Election officials should ensure that an adequate number of voting booths (based on prior presidential elections or based on what election management toolkits recommend) can be safely located within the voting area at the standard polling locations, placing booths outside if necessary.
4. We do not recommend using sports arenas as supplementary polling locations for in-person voting on Election Day. Alternative polling locations introduce complexity and could create a mismatch between where voters choose to go and where resources are allocated, potentially leading to longer waiting times for many voters. This drawback can be avoided by instead allocating the would-be resources at the sports arena to the standard polling locations.
5. The results emphasize the importance of high levels of early voting for preventing long voter queues (i.e., one half to three quarters of all votes being cast early). This can be achieved by expanding in-person early voting, in terms of both the timeframe and locations for early in-person early voting, adding new drop box locations for voters to deposit absentee ballots on or before Election Day, and educating voters on properly completing and submitting a mail-in absentee ballot.

The results are based on a detailed case study using data from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is worth noting that the discrete event simulation model reflects standard voting procedures used throughout the country and can be applied to other settings. Since the data from the Milwaukee case study are reflective of many other settings, the results, observations, and recommendations can be applied to voting precincts throughout Wisconsin and in other states that hold in-person voting on Election Day.