Method to allocate voting resources with unequal ballots and/or education

Theodore T Allen; Muer Yang; Shijie Huang; Olivia K Hernandez

doi:10.1016/j.mex.2020.100872

Method to allocate voting resources with unequal ballots and/or education

MethodsX. 2020 Mar 20:7:100872. doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2020.100872. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Theodore T Allen¹, Muer Yang², Shijie Huang³, Olivia K Hernandez¹

Affiliations

¹ Integrated Systems Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, United States.
² Opus College of Business, University of St. Thomas, Saint Paul, MN 55105, United States.
³ Advanced Analytics, Nationwide E&S, Scottsdale, AZ 85258, United States.

Abstract

Apportionment in election systems refers to determination of the number of voting resources (poll books, poll workers, or voting machines) needed to ensure that all voters can expect to wait no longer than an appropriate amount, even the voter who waits the longest. Apportionment is a common problem for election officials and legislatures. A related problem is "allocation," which relates to the deployment of an existing number of resources so that the longest expected wait is held to an appropritate amount. Provisioning and allocation are difficult because the numbers of expected voters, the ballot lengths, and the education levels of voters may all differ significantly from precinct-to-precinct in a county. Consider that predicting the waiting time of the voter who waits the longest generally requires discrete event simulation.•The methods here rigorously guarantee that all voters expect to wait a prescribed time with a bounded probability, e.g., everyone expects to wait less than thirty minutes with probability greater than 95%.•The methods here can handle both a single type of resource (e.g., voting machines or scan machines) and multiple resource types (e.g., voting machines and poll books).•The methods are provided in a freely available, easy-to-use Excel software program.

Keywords: Allocation; Comparison with the best; Consumer requirements management; Election systems; Indifference-zone; Multiple comparisons; Resource management; Simulation optimization; Voting machine.