Transcripts For CSPAN2 Election Assistance Commission Summit - Panel On Election Efficiency 20180112

I was really honored to be invited to be here and i cant wait to hear what all of you had to say. Heres for a successful 2018. [applause] while doctor stewart is getting miked up i just want to say thank you to the chairman for getting us kicked off and to doug jason for those great remarks. Commissioner masterson mentioned the panel that we have here is called election efficiency and integrity, improving the Voter Experience, but most of this panel will be focused on data and the importance of data and how we use it in the Election Community. Weve got a great panel for you, you have biographies in front of you that my staff has provided some abbreviated biographies which i will read and we will start hearing from the panel. Ive asked each of them to speak for about five minutes, from their perspective on this panel and then i have some questions for them and then we will go to questions from you. Before i get started i want to thank you all for being here, im very excited to kick off the 2018 elections. Its hard to believe its already 2018. We are kicking off the election but officials have already started working on this the day after their last election. I know those of you who are Election Officials in the audience, this is not a kickoff for you. As others have said its just a kickoff in january but you all have been working on this election since the last election. I appreciate all the hard work that you have put in to making our election so good in this country. I will do some brief Panel Introductions and will get going. To my right is secretary barbara. She has served as the secretary of state since 2015, she has more than three decades of combined Public Service in Small Business experience. Prior to becoming secretary of state she represented clark county and before that she was elected to three consecutive terms representing clark County District five and the nevada assembly. Thank you for being here. To my left is doctor tricia and she is a Senior Researcher at the marsh group where she served as a lead researcher for the eac election administrating and voting or even they did fantastic job for us this year. Thats not an easy task, believe me. For more than a decade she has worked with a number of private and Public Partners including the future and will trust voting information project and our friends at the federal Voting Program over and the department of defense. Thank you for being here. To my far right is michael, he is the registrar of voters for San Bernardino california which is actually the largest geographical election jurisdiction in the country. Michael has been more than 18 years working as a director of elections in three states and his expertise is in improving operations, reporting results quickly and accurately and developing innovative programs to assist voters. While michael has made his mark at each post in San Bernardino county he has made the Election Office into a more Efficient Organization and i know that from visiting out there, its an impressive operation, including the launch of new applications, redesign of the county ballot, consolidation of underused polling places, he has improved poll worker efforts and much more. We are excited to hear about what youre doing in your office. To my far left, maybe politically, i dont know i have doctor Charles Stewart the third, am i saying that correct. Distinguished professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of technology, mit where he has taught since 1985. His extensive, and thats probably an understatement includes closed books inside politics, elections an important Clinical Development spread those of us in this room have come to rely on charles undeniable ability to help us better understand voters and how Election Administrators can best serve them. Thank you very much for taking time out to be with us today. So, if asked each of the panelists to make about a five minute presentation and i will start on my far right with michael and they all have some notes in front of them instead of power points so taken away, michael. Thank you for allowing me too serve on this panel. I have to warn you, i am an election geek also and i can go for hours about this. I know we have a short period of time so i will refer to my notes to keep me on track. The goal of a local election official is to conduct elections in fair, accurate, assessable, efficient and transparent manner. Meeting that goal is difficult because our budgets are tight, staffs are small, we rely on temp workers and poll workers, and the expectation is perfection. Thats very difficult. We are constantly thinking about new ways to improve our processes. One of the ways we can do this is to use data so we typically collect raw data but we analyze the data and then we use that data to converted information to improve our process. Traditionally the analysis to prepare that data has been simple. We look at the number of registered voters, we look at the historic turnout, we analyze how many locations, how many ballots and we put those computations, we have put them. The issue is many times they are based on averages across the county and averages are helpful but it can be problematic because if we basing on averages, sometimes we underestimate much supply we need and sometimes we overestimate and we waste money. In reaction, many officials around the country have spent a lot of time crunching data more to try to be more efficient. In my 18 years in this business, i have challenged my staff to crunch the numbers and i always tell them they should of paid attention in math class so i remind them everything we do has to be based on numbers. In fact we believe in it so much that we created an elections Analytic Department and we have an elections analytic who does nothing but crunch numbers and develop processes all day for our different departments. We currently analyze data in every area of our organization and the process, goes like this spread we collect data, im just to give you an example. Its how we look at polling places, for instance. We look, we collect data about the polling places. We inspect polling places at acceptable locations. We inventory the number of Parking Spaces at those locations, we measure the square footage. Then we collect data about voter behavior. We know that historically we look at voter turnout but we also look at where people live and we also look at when they vote. We measure when people vote by the hour and this is something thats kind of unique. I dont think too many counties do that. We also look at how people vote, do they vote regular ballot or provisional ballot or vote by mail or did they just drop off a vote by mail ballot at that location. Then we also predict with how the voter will behave on that election day. We do simulations, we look at how long it takes a voter to drive to their location. We look at how long it takes them to park their car, walk into the location, how long it takes to process that voter and then vote that ballot for that particular election. Is a long or short. Then return to their car. We gather that data. We also gather data about our poll worker behavior. How long does it take to process a person. How long does it take for provisional supervisor to process a provisional voter. Then we take all of this information we crunch it. We take this data and we calculate the capacity of each of our polling places. Then we take that information and we assign people to polling places because the goal is to keep every polling place busy and be efficient but not to have any polling place be overwhelmed and have too many voters and then have lines. We also project the number of voters by the hour at each polling place. We use this information to determine how many supplies we put at every location, how many booths, how many other supplies we need and how many ballots of each type. Keep in mind people always talk about how many ballots but most Election Officials, its not just a ballot, its 1400 different types of ballots we have to distribute. We have to calculate the number of each of those different types. Its very complicated and we also assign the number of poll workers based on projections at each polling place. We do that for the peak hour so that we dont have any problems for the number of poll workers very spread is not just three or five at any location. Its anywhere from 5 18 different pullers. We also plan our lunch and dinner breaks around those time times. We found this Data Analysis is helpful and it helps keep things smooth at the polling place but its also not always dependable. We also, in addition prior to election day on election day we actually survey each and every one of our polling places to find out what the turnout is like in the ballot usage and then we make corrections as necessary. but to expand our Services Like early voting site and a number of mail ballot dropoff locations. This is one example we conduct similar analysis for our early voting for our mail ballot dropoffs and will use similar logic in the future as california moves to a close center model and ill be tapping in to see what theyre doing in colorado to kind of crunch the numbers. A couple other examples of how we use data. The use to speed our ballot counting. Of our paper ballots in the project drive times to get ballots back and we monitor the progress here we analyze the time it takes to process ballots at each step of the way to process them, to count them, to duplicate ballots, to store them and then we adjust as necessary on election day. We use numbers to train and assign our poll workers but we have over 3500 poll workers in a county hereby to. But to get those 3500, with a contact over 10,000 people. We have to schedule over 7002 web to train over 5000 and the site over 4000 to get the 3500 work on election day. We must recruit and train people in six different languages and place people at different precincts. Because were a large area of 20,000 square miles we train and assigned by region. What we found is that in each region people behave or their behavior is a little bit different. More people are dependable than others. In different regions. We use the information from our analysis to look at that behavior to have different projections in each different type of region. So we are not short of workers at any particular region. Thats a quick look at how we use data. It made the Voter Experience better. We also then passed that information to state and federal officials to compile that data, and then we compare our performance against other jurisdictions. Great. Thank you so much. Doesnt i need the number of data points we can collect and do Different Things with, very interesting some of things you are doing. Just incredible. Thank you from the local level. We go now to the state level with secretary cegavske from nevada. Interested in hearing what you are to say. Thank you for adding here today. I want to thank the eac for putting on the summit, christie, for all of your assistance. In the state invest with 17 counties, and of those we have team that our elected clerks and then to voter registrars. We have a very large county in clark, so we understand sometimes the pain that you were going with. But one of the things i want to explain to everybody because one of the things that always an unusual for me is to acronyms. Many of you with your acronyms and they can mean Something Different i want to make sure that youre all aware of some of the acronyms i will be using just to talk about what we are required to do. One of them is the Election Administration and Voting Survey that we do get from the eac. Its a biannual survey administered by the eac after every federal election which is of course every two years, that data that is collected includes voter turnout, Voter Registration, preelection voting, absentee voting, military and overseas voting, polling places, poll workers and provisional voting. We also have what is that vra which is the Voter Registration agency and its a Government Agency designated by the federal or state law that is required to offer its customers or clients come in most circumstances, the opportunity to register to vote. The ra includes the dmv, assistance agencies like welfare or employment assistance agencies, agencies that provide service to people with disabilities act aging and Disabilities Service division, and military recruitment offices. The next one that you a little bit about is that covered transactions, and every time a customer or a client with the vra is requesting service, filling out a form or application, the vra is required by law to give the person the opportunity to register to vote. These interactions are called covered transactions, and two examples for us in the data that is when youre going into do anything with your drivers license at the dmv or a person submitting the application well for assistance. And then the national Voter Registration act, the and rva, that is a 1993 federal law also known as the motor voter law that requires the dmv and public assistance agencies to offer the opportunity to register to vote. So with those i just want to make sure that Everybody Knows our acronyms. In nevada we use data to improve the administration of elections and voters experience in several ways. And among other things the office of the secretary of state is currently focused, focusing on transactional data to monitor the effectiveness of Voter Registration agencies. So on a regular basis we look at what they give us to find out if its accurate and if theres any issues that we might see. We coordinate routine reporting with Voter Registration agencies in nevada local Election Officials as well, and the Voter Registration agencies record report the numbers of covered transactions, whether the clients choose to register drink a covered transaction or if theyre going to send in later or give it to somebody else. Those numbers are tracked. We know that they have that and thats where they got that application. And the number of Voter Registration applications each local vra office transmit to the county Election Office. The local officials track and report the number of ballot applications received from each Voter Registration agency as i said, and then send that information to the secretary of States Office. And the second estate receives mother reports from the department of Motor Vehicles. We get from also the health and Human Services, these reports are made available on line for the of state nevada at www. Nvsos. Gov. And we also have a program that monitors data to identify and correct any potential complaint or compliance issues as well as identify best practices. Ill give you an example. If a a significant decrease frm previous reporting is an identified in the number of completed Voter Registration applications being transmitted from a Voter Registration agency to local Election Office, the secretary of state Program Staff and the Voter Registration agency will investigate to determine the cause and whether any corrective action is necessary. We do that on a regular basis between the two agencies. Then we are evaluating the disposition of completed Voter Registration applications among offices is another metric Program Staff used to identify where review and corrective action might be necessary. And an example of that is a local Voter Registration Agency Office that exhibit slower than average completed Voter Registration applications or rejected applications can indicate potential issues during that covered transaction and the need for vra staff review training materials. The secretary of States Office puts this Data Collection into charts and graphs which allows for the review of large amounts of data adequate as well as that can vacation a significant statistical variations. It also allows for quick comparison of data over a period of time and other data sets. Example for this is the department of health and Human Services report multiple figures for more than 100 offices on a monthly basis. In the raw data format interpreting this data can be daunting, but by placing this data in a scatter plot or a line graph program, staff can easily determine if theres any deviations. Collecting this data on covered transactions from Voter Registration agencies allows the secretary of state to be proactive during conversations with any of the advocacy groups. And nevada uses Voter Registration and turnout also to identify best practices at the local level. So we feel very, very confident in the information that we are getting and being able to work with any of the agencies in nevada to see if we have any issues or where we might need to go in a different direction or look at how we might need to change what were doing. So look forward to the next part. Both of these little presentations have pointed out, really the goal is to make the process better for the voter and serve our taxpayers better as well. We are all public servants, at least this site as a file, and collecting the data makes a big difference on how we can make the Voter Experience better and more efficient. So from the west side of the country im now turning to the other side of the country, and the tube analyst to my left by both researchers, academics, and interested in hearing what you all have to say on what youve seen with the data and how to make things more efficient and bring more integrity to the voting process. Thank you so much for having me today. My name is krysha gregorowicz, im a Senior Researcher at Fors Marsh Group a great the honor of working with eac to administer the 2016 Election Administration and Voting Survey. I will kind of, im happy i gt to follow our Election Officials because i think these are exemplary of how powerful data can be if used correctly to improve our processes and really evaluate whether the policies that we have in place, the processes, and investments that we are making in the election system are having the intended effect. Its a big challenge that we dealt with as part of Election Administration and Voting Survey, is how can we learn from each other. They talked about elections create so much of data, and we have great examples of harnessing that dated to do ones job better is to make sue elections are run well. But but i think its really important to remember, and im lucky i am on one the early panel so, there is no one election in the United States. There are thousands of independent elections right at the state and local levels. They are run with her own policies and their own processes. Anne frank and a lot of ways of their own vocabulary. When you talk about acronyms and defining those, thats really important. Because of that having common definitions of what these data are, and what we can do within, we really struggle to talk to each other. So the Election Administration and Voting Survey, for those of you dont know, it is a largescale, the only largescale Data Collection instrument for administrative data on elections in the u. S. So calling it a survey is a bit of misnomer. Its really offensive of Election Administration in the United States. Covering a variety of topics registration for the, absentee voting, military and overseas voting, technology and our processes. Whats a really remarkable is 2004 was the first survey was fielded and smugly think its fundamental questions about elections in the United States pixel for example, how many precincts and polling places either in the United States . Its mindboggling to think that there was no one place that you can find that information. It seems so basic and fundamental. The answer to the question for 2016 was, there are about 178,000 individual precincts, and about 116,000, almost 117,000 individual polling places. Additionally, about 8500 early voting locations in the u. S. I will caveat into this numbers are still complicated to interpret, but thats a very important piece of information thats something that we would not have known that before. I think a couple of other highlights that we learned from 2016, there were about, locally election a state Election Officials processed about 77. 5 million registration forms. By far the dmv, or our department of Motor Vehicle offices, about a third of them are coming from our dmv. One change from previous election was increasing use of online Voter Registration systems. So we had about 17. 4 of registration forms coming from online systems. Thats up from 2012, it was only about 5 . So big jump in there. Similarly, the poll books we saw a 75 increase across the country in 2016 cents 2012. 2. 5 million provisional ballots, about half of which came from california. Overall about 71 counted in part or full so thats an important way, metric to consider how well that protection is working. Very active overseas voter population. We saw about 178,000 ballots transmitted to overseas citizen voters, so nonmilitary, about 100,000 were that in 2012. Almost 80 were returned and ultimately counted. So these are sort of important pieces of information about how elections in the United States are doing. And again, from all jurisdictions across the country. So while these are sort of neat insights i think what is important, what really is important about the ease since it started is it helps us develop a a common language to talk about elections with. Our secretary from nevada mentioned this, but defining acronyms. Without a common definition of these basic terms, whats registration . What do we mean by a rejected or accepted ballot . We really cant, it becomes very difficult to learn from each other and to make these comparisons. That has been a very important, its work in progress and this year the federal Voting Assistance program through their overseas voting initiatives coordinating with the council of state governments read a Section Working Group and brought together state and local Election Officials from across the country to talk about this section b which is a military and overseas voter section of that eus to talk about the challenges that they face clicking the data and reporting it and helped refine the definitions that those lessons were able to apply across the eves to the other section for when we have this, language talk to each other, it really unlocks the possibility of using all the data that you collected, or more of the data because there is copious amounts. In order to report to the eves. Not even necessarily to do this amazing work in developing and refining ones processes at an individual level but really to administer elections. This is sort of the tool that on the ground makes sure elections are having. Its exciting i think that there are some possibilities out there already moving to projects with common data, data standardization where were looking at directly from the dated data being collected at a transactional level and how can we take it from multiple jurisdictions, i believe it was 13th involved in that project this year, how can we make these transactional data talk to each other to standardize it in a way that we can gain insight into the election process and improve the election process in the United States. So very exciting opportunities in the future, and i think that you use for important part of that. It really does show was the big picture nationwide of how things are going. The successes and the challenges, and down to this water levels and smaller jurisdiction levels which is really great. And as we continue to work on that with our partners and the federal government on the ground and in the states and local jurisdictions and, of course, our researchers will make it even better. Its an valuable information. With that i will go to doctor stuart. Thank you so much for being here again. Looking forward to your comment. Its great to be a thanks again to the eac for inviting me this morning. Actually want to start come up with, on the quick christy made on the introduction about our relative political locations. I think thats a good place to start. Those of us who are in this business of researching Election Special event to make them better, all the times, oftentimes talk about making it easier to vote and harder to keep it that the goal with all share as we try to make elections better. This Movement Towards datadriven Election Administration is really an effort to try to understand that the degree to which we might have certain values that determine may maybe how we thik about achieving those goals, oftentimes we can decide some of those questions based on the facts. I think those of us who are geeks at a think all of us on this battle sound like we are geeks, i think we are driven to see how much we can base our knowledge, our actions on the evidence in front of us. And i think that a lot of Success Stories that i will talk about in just a little bit, and the second, where when we focus on the facts we can really make a lot of progress. I think thats the important thing. The topic today is making the voting experience better for voters, making it better for the nation. I guess the way that i jump into this as an election geek is thinking back to the year 2008 event that got me actively involved in study Election Administration, and many people around the country interested, at least noticed that there Something Interesting and Election Administration. That of course was the florida recount. Being a native floridian, having been registered to vote when i was 18 by my second Grade Sunday School teacher, ive always been very interested in Election Administration from a young age. The interesting thing to me as an academic about the florida recount, once we kind of took a deep breath and try to forget what was going on, was to try to understand weather, first of all, whether what happened in florida was a oneoff situation, or was it common. And then secondly to try to figure out really, how bad is it after all . Even the best, the best that election some time to time are going to have, are going to be close. The fact that you have recount is not a problem. In fact, thats a good thing to try to get the answer right. The question is, are the problems that emerged during the recount, are the general, argus pacific took place, and how how big are they . It turns out in 2000 there wasnt a good sense about the answers to these questions. His florida a oneoff or not . Have these problems persisted for a long time or not . And then went help america vote act was passed in 2002, then the question became okay, were going to spend a couple of billion dollars to make elections better, how will we know if the money was well spent . All of these come down to questions of fact and data. And in 2000 in 2000 it was reay interesting to me as a quantitative social scientist that despite all the dated thats generated by elections, very little of it has been used for management purposes and for the purpose of assessing how well the elections were run. So that was one of the things that we did in an organization that i continue to lead called the mit, actually formally the caltech mit Voting Technology project. I like to call the mit caltech voting project. But we did was we looked around to find ways in which we could use data already being, already being collected, to answer this question. How that was in florida . How does it compare to other states . How does it compare to the past . And in part we discovered, i discovered someone named camp place over here would been collecting for many, many years turn updated and election return data and data technologies, and discovered the Census Bureau had been asking questions of voters for many, many years about problems they were having when they turned out vote. We discovered there was a load of data that could be used to assess the elections and then to chart the improvement that we discovered in 2000, for instance, that when we amassed all the state and look at from the perspective of how many lost votes whether in 2000 . By a loss about i mean, come to think about it this way. You wake up on election day, back in the days when all voted on election day, wake up on election day into a developer you as a a do everything right and at the end of the day the vote you cast is not counted. Or even youre not allowed to vote because, say, there was a screwup in your Voter Registration. How many votes was that . That was really the net of the problem in the photo recount. What we discovered from the data that between 1. 5 and 2 million votes in that election they were lost because of fears and Voting Machines, hanging chads, poorly maintained mechanical lever machines, those kinds of things. Almost up to 2 million voters that date and electorate of 100 million. We also able to calculate that between 1. 5 3 Million People did not get to vote because of problems with Voter Registration. We further discovered that around 1 Million People walked away from the polls because of long lines or other problems that they faced in the polling places. And then an unknown number of the time of problems with absentee ballots which we later discovered to be of a similar magnitude to the numbers i just mentioned. Civilians of people in 2000 and also 1996 and 1992 had that everything right and didnt have the vote counted. Because thats what were in 2000. Fast forward to the present. Have those billions of dollars and these other efforts been worthwhile . It turns at using the same methods, we see that roughly threequarters of those votes that were lost because of voting machine problems have gone away, but have of Voter Registration lost votes have gone away. About a quarter of the polling place problems have gone away. In other words, we have, in the 2016 election, the 2012 election, 2008 election, the 2004 election there had been a couple more million voters in america who had their votes counted. Because we got better at running elections. And were able to document that. Thats a really valuable thing, both for us to understand how well our democracy runs, to understand we can make a better and to understand how to use our limited resources that have been mentioned several times to target where to make things better. So as an academic im interested in these things just because im curious about everything in kind of a perverse way. But i think that the use of data like this that comes from a wide variety of sources can help us to pin point where problems are. As an aside, often times when one discovers there are problems with Voting Machines are long lines, its hard to tell is this a problem everywhere or a problem of the few places. And understanding not only the magnitude of the problem but exactly where to focus attention is really, really important. So he turned out that in 2000 just about everybody had problems with Voting Machines. In fact, it was one state come at a one to shoot anybody so will make up a name, had even bigger problems than florida in terms of lost votes and poorly maintained Voting Machines. Guess what, they got to the data before we did and they got really good at their voting machine management. So targeting, figure out where the problems are and going after the problem. Theres a similar story from 2012. In the simpler days of 2012, when all he cared about was people waiting in line for longterm rather than things that came up in the 2016 election, it was was a similar thing. Well, how bad is the line problem . It turns out that just about every newspaper or news website in america on election day has a picture of a lot of people stand in line waiting to vote at 7 00 in the morning. Well, is that generally true, or is it just because its like one precinct february and everywhere else is good . So extensive is the problem . Where should we concentrate our resources, and how will we know when we did better . This is a case where, its not that Election Officials have in gathering data industry so much, although it sounds like San Bernardino they have been, but again we been able to amass data in order to first of all assess where the problems are sent to address the problems and make things better in 2016. In 2012 we were already asking voters how long they were waiting to vote. Waiting in line. We discovered they were about half a dozen states really where this was a problem statewide. Every city in america it was probably a problem that needed to be looked at but there are a lot of places in america where it was not an endemic problem. More of a oneoff situation. That was advisable thing to learn. But here we had to basically create datagathering processes since it is not a common practice for universal practice to like counter me people were in line on a regular basis, those sorts of things. So working with the Bipartisan Policy Center we developed protocols for local Election Officials to start counting up the lines and rely on theory to turn those numbers into estimates of line links. I can report in 2016 we would back and asked voters how long to wait in line, though states that had really long lines in 2012, and i will name them, well make up names, south carolina, virginia, maryland, their lines, florida, famously florida, their lines were cut in half or cut by threequarters. From my perspective, whenever i give my big talk about elections in america and those of you have seen the onehour version of the talk i will often times a start with one of my favorite videos which is by charles which many of us saw in high school or college and i use that video to illustrate how there are Different Levels of understanding the world, one of which being elections and we can understand whats happening on a National Level, state level, county level or polling places and to get elections right in america we need to understand understand those levels and whats happening on those levels and a comprehensive program of assessing levels in america are looking in all of those levels and the final thing i will say is due to the generosity of the Carnegie Corporation i have a year off to write a book about elections and the sub title the working subtitle well, the working title and subtitle are working in america doing better, but doing worse. The subtitle is just to point out where there continues to be a sense that america in certain places is Banana Republic and we never quite get it writes. I think the story is quite a different one. The evidences we are Getting Better and we do have a positive story and that there are challenges. Of the trick is to measure what the challenges are, and instrument voting so we can use our limited time and money efficiently to make elections overcome the challenges that continue to be thrown out as, so thank you. I joke about our political positions, but the great thing about the Election Community is that we all come together focused on what are the facts and how can we find Common Ground and make the experience better for Election Administrators, those reporting on it and especially for the voters, so even though we are possibly have different parties all throughout our community we all have the same focus and that is making sure people get out to vote and their experience is a good one so they continue to votes. Without im going to ask a couple questions of the panel and then we will go to the audience. We dont have a huge amount of time because those were longer than five minute presentations, but well worth listening to, so as we have heard elections create a lot of data and i would like to ask and maybe i will start on this side, what are the two or three sets of data that you think are the most important for voters to understand how elections work . I guess i am on this side. We established that. When i go around and talk about elections, voters just dont know the basic contours of how we vote and voters in the westar amazed at how we vote in the east and vice versa, so a matter of just educating the voters how we vote by mail, in person although, one line of controversy and policy seems like voter id and those things, people just dont know what happens in other states. People just dont know how you register in other states, so just basic facts like that and kind of how to weave though, how do we register, how do we check in and do things . The other thing i find industry interesting is the next fact after the number of prestinks precincts which kind of consents some of the contents of election is between 100,200,000 prestinks we have about a million poll workers on election day and that is a management challenge and also the greatest mobilization democratic mobilization in this country and i think we fail to appreciate the size of that effort and importance of that effort and that is a fact i wish more voters new and more policymakers now. As a poll worker in Prince William county, virginia, i agree with that because unlike our friends on the west coast we dont get lunch breaks and stuff , so im all about that. 41 or so of people in 2016 election voted before election day, by mail, early voting, absentee voting and thats important. Those dynamics, i agree with you 100 and the other thing is the dagger data is aggregated up from voting machine to polling places to the precinct yellow and county level and state level and i think there is a need for more localism in some of the data that is reported. People are interested in how their neighborhood voted or how many turned out, so that is a something i think there is interest in and is lacking. Im going to Something Different on this side. You talked a lot about the data both of you used it to analyze your elections and how things are going and where you need to fix things or do you also use that data in Budget Discussions, you know in resource allocations and things of that nature connect certainly. I kind of talked about how we the county administrator just wants to save money, but we save money here and we will use it to expand our services they are and so we certainly do use the analysis in our Budget Discussion. But, i want to touch base on the last question because i was anxious to answer that one. If we are talking about educating voters, the number one way that they get educated was through our website and so one of the greatest tools ever i mean, its wonderful because back in 2012 we redesigned our website and we thought we knew what we were doing and we thought it was great. We looked at our Google Analytics and we see people are still confused and have a hard time finding things so we adjusted our website to that and we went even further and created an application where instead of people searching for information they logged in and we fed them information, so that Google Analytics really helped us educate those voters. You can answer one or both of those questions. Well to be honest, yes data does help us in any Budget Discussion when we go before the legislature. We bring them examples. We bring them our statistics. Those are very very helpful in any of the discussions about making new laws and budget as well and the effectiveness for the Voter Registration, i think, is something we needed to point out as well, not only in the Voter Registration agencies, but we have online, so theres a lot more that we could analyze and look at, but we are doing a lot and i notice california from listening to my colleagues that they do an awful lot more than i think we do, but that is one of the criteria that i think is a problem is that we all dont do the same and so we have smaller comparisons and so if we can be on the same page and thats along with the acronyms of just being on the same page for those that helps us with whatever we collect and how we analyze it and looking at state to state because we are all different. Thats why these kinds of conversations are important to hear what other people are doing and apply them to our own offices and processes. On going to go to the audience because we dont have too much time and i will take questions. I think we have a couple roving microphones so we will go over here. First, excellent. Thank you all very much. I have a question for doctor stuarts and the rest of the panel. What she pointed out, wonderful improvements and more people actually getting their votes counted. Did i get it right that the least improvements was problems in the polling place and if i heard you properly, im wondering if you and the panelists have any ideas about what can be done to improve that area . Thank you. Quickly since jim directed the question to me, but im sure the rest of the panelists have better ideas than i do. You heard me correctly and which is that the polling places that have been lagged behind from 2000 the observation i make when i talk at greater length about the is that if you think about the other big problem that were identified in 2000 voting machine, Voter Registration and each of those have a magic bullet associated with it. Voter registration, you get new systems with provisional ballots are those are things i can usually implemented from the top down and are just a matter sometimes of spending money. Polling places are about managing those Million People and thats more like pushing on wet spaghetti and the management of the people is a huge problem in general and so it strikes me that in many ways the polling places, problems which are the smallest and number are the most vexing because of the nature of the problem. The only comment i have for the poll workers is what i hear from the 17 counties in nevada is that we volunteers. We have seniors, people who sometimes are new or sometimes have been there for a long time and dont know the new laws specifically, but we do training and try to improve that training , but we have human beings that are the polling places doing the work and sometimes that can be an issue in other times we are really really happy they are there and they have the knowledge they do, so kind of a mixed bag, sometimes. Other questions from the audience . Yep . Doctor stuart, you mentioned the difference between quantitative and qualitative, so i would like you to talk about that a bit as it relates to how Election Officials by conduct that analysis and mr. Scarpelli zero, you mentioned that you collected a lot of data and analyzed that. How would you encourage local Election Officials to analyze that data . How would they go about analyzing the data . Quickly because i am really interested in the answer to the second question. I mean, certainly i mean, the advantage of quantifying things is that its a very efficient way and a mass way of identifying problems and moving in kind of a wholesale manner in management. The quality data by which i think the question implies talking to people about whats up bills and why it is that you might have a problem here or there is certainly again like any management tool that there is a variety of ways of approaching the data that will be powerful, but i want to hear how they actually got to do this great stuff in San Bernardino. I will say your office is not huge. It may be even smaller than the eeoc. We are probably the smallest Elections Office per capita in the country with only 28 employees to serve a population of 2 Million People. I think the important thing is to get buyin from management, to get the county to invest in analytics and to then participate on a National Level and in discussions like this to get education, you know Election Center and doug chapins organization and to share information, gather information from other officials and learn from each other. I think that is the best way to improve the processes and i think we have seen that a lot since 2000. When i got in this business in 2000 and the vert bush versus gore year i was shocked in omaha, nebraska, there were even typewriters and werent using computers, so we have come a long way and i think thats because people share information do you want to answer any of those at all . I would say on the qualitative and i think its an important question because with all of these jurisdictions throughout the country collected their data in their own way i think is really a blind spot a bit that we make some heavy assumptions about what it is these quantitative data we are looking at our, so i think in terms of qualitatively going out and understanding whose inputting data and how are these systems connected or not connected, what really are how are they classifying and art dates being put in realistic or sort of thrown into philly gap at the end these are qualitative things we need to know that would help on that quantitative and to make better use of an sense of the data we have. Question from the audience . I have a question around early voting and data around early voting. The early voting varies dramatically by state and by how much time is allotted from a couple of days. Either from a jurisdictional perspective or National Survey perspective, is there any data or sense of usage rate over time and by that i mean is there you know, theres a huge influx buffers couple of days and then does it pick back up at election date and does it really very by states as they look to either expand or contract there early Voting Period to see when is voters using it at sort of its highest usage rates and i can anyone want to jump in on that . I have an answer. Go ahead. If i understand your question right, you are talking about the early voting and trends we see from the beginning to the end of that. Usually you can just stop and see who wins and loses in nevada , just because people come out and early vote. I mean, the numbers are very very high and one of the things we see is that it depends on if there is a weekend or if its during the week when people are coming because we have the malls we have now the community centers, but there is that trend of seeing high numbers in the beginning and not so much in the middle, but then on the weekends its really big turnout. It just depends on the days and i do think each state is a little different in their number of days they have for early voting if they have early voting. I dont know if everyone does at this time, but its very popular in nevada. People have habits and voting , so they get used to voting a certain way and to change those habits it sometimes takes time and what we found the colorado years ago is we made early voting much more available and went from one location to 13 locations and that increased and i think it 2008 we had people voting early as on election day and of course that concept expanded to early voting all the time. So, we are kind of going through that transition in california right now. We are expanding early voting and its starting to catch on with this last president ial year early voting in our county exploded and we expect it to continue to grow in the future. Quickly, many, i mean, states they are states very. I love giving a shout out to north carolina, because they basically put all on the site and you can go in and suck them dry. One of the files they have is with its all within their absentee file, but you can get down to the time of day from the beginning of early voting and i think thats ace sandbox to learn about these questions for people who are really into crunching numbers. Question from the audience . I am excited about all the focus on analytics, but we have had major polls showing voters have a low confidence in the results of the elections and im wondering if theres an emphasis on turning that analytic eye to the accounting of the ballots to count more ballots by hand or statistically significant number of ballots by hand or releasing digital ballot images to the public and candidates so that analysis can be made of each analysis. I think where people lacking confidence right now is the measurement in count of the ballot even though i think its great your measuring parking lot i think the ballot is where people like to see more progress thank you. I would take an answer on that for many of you. Anyone want to take that on . I have one answer to that, which is the empirical one and is sexually the challenge and premise of the question, but then to rotate it. One of the things i do is study a lot voter confidence and Public Opinion and it turns out first of all voters are very confident about the quality of the vote count county locally in the state level and they are quite skeptical about nationwide. Thing number two, the thing that moves voter confidence is whether your candidate wins or loses. Theres virtually nothing from the studies ive done and my colleagues have done, there is nothing that really in Election Administration that moves voter confidence. Having said that, i think there are good reasons for doing things like risk limiting audits and other techniques that a sure boaters who paying attention, Election Officials and candidates that the vote was counted properly, so my own take on things is that it can be if one wants to hang reform on voter confidence when may be disappointed because voters are basing their competence in the system as far as we can tell from the research on Election Administration. Similarly, we dont count ballots on a national ballot. Yes. We have 51 election in a federal general federal election year. Back to your comment about process as well with a lack of understanding of this complicated process. Voter education. You are looking at a perception problem, not an actual problem, but up perception problem so rather than changing the process we have to educate people. What we find when we have the candidate that loses they come in the day after the election and say this is all crooked and then we walk them through and educate them and we are very transparent and we educate them about every single aspect of what weve done in the election by the time they walk out of there, 99. 9 of the time they are satisfied, so its the same with the public. We need to do a better job of educating the public on the process and if we do i think you will have a lot more confidence. Any of the questions from the audience. How are you guys using data to maintain activities if we can talk about that a bit, local and statewide. She wanted to know how you use data for the scenic cities. Michael . Lift maintenance is something that has changed a lot with the help of the american vote act of 2002. We had over 3000 county databases and now, we have 50 statewide bases in california just made this change in 201516. With statewide lift it becomes more efficient list and we can look at cross county moves, duplicate voters etc. And so that has really come along way in the last several years and that will expand and hopefully we see a consortium of counties or states that have put their lives together and we see cross state moves so that data will get even better and better as time goes on and with the use of mass data bases etc. We have come to the end of our discussion. We could have gone on for a lot longer. We could endlessly have discussions about data and how we use it, but it was a fantastic discussion i want to thank each of my panelists for giving of your time to be here. I really appreciate it and i also want to thank all of you, our audience for your thoughtful questions and we will now take a short 15 minute break and reconfirm at 11 15 a. M. Thank you very much. [applause]. We will go ahead and get started with the next panel