BALTIMORE, MD, October 17, 2022 – New audio is available for media use featuring Adam Schmidt, an Operations Research analyst at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. He speaks about strategies to address integrity in elections. This content is made available by INFORMS, the largest association for the decision and data sciences. What follows are 4 questions and responses. These responses were provided on October 14, 2022.
Question 1: What are the major challenges when it comes to election integrity?
Time Cue: 0:20, Soundbite Duration: :33
“I think there are three key challenges: The first is making sure that ballots are counted as intended and ensuring only valid ballots are accepted. This is often posed as a cybersecurity and supply chain challenge, but there is also a political aspect to it. The second is ensuring that voting systems are designed efficiently, fairly, and accessibly. This is particularly challenging when there are uncertain election conditions, and this is largely what my research focuses on. The third is ensuring the public trusts the election voting systems and processes.”
Question 2: How can data and analytics be used to address those challenges?
Time Cue: 1:00, Soundbite Duration: :38
“There are many, but I’ll discuss two: The first is by improving planning decisions - Analytics can be used to allocate the right resources, and the right number of resources, to voters. For example, optimization can be used to allocate the appropriate number of voting machines and poll workers to polling places to achieve short wait times. Analytics can also be used to determine how to respond to novel disruptions to voting processes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The second way that data and analytics can be used to addresses challenges with election integrity is by simultaneously making the elections-related decisions more rigorous and transparent.”
Question 3: What will it take for policymakers to embrace and adopt some of these data and analytics solutions?
Time Cue: 01:45, Soundbite Duration: :33
“For policy makers to embrace the use of data and analytics for elections, they first need to know that tools that can improve election performance even exist! We need to raise awareness among policymakers and election officials. After that, I think one of the largest barriers to the adoption of analytics in the election domain is the low data availability. Jurisdictions will need to set-up the necessary data systems and architecture to allow election officials to use these tools. The good news is that some jurisdictions are already moving in this direction.”
Question 4: What is the best first step policy makers can take to use data and analytics to maintain the confidence of the electorate?
Time Cue: 02:27, Soundbite Duration: :23
“Again, if data about their voting systems (like voter wait time and how long it takes for voters to cast a ballot) isn’t being collected – it should be! My recommendation is to support the creation and management of these data systems whenever possible. Once you have that, a good first step is to look into some of the simple, easy to use tools provided by the Stanford-MIT Health Elections Project. These can be powerful data and analytics tools to help make informed election planning decisions.”
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