How Many Polling Stations for Early Voting Do We Need?

Photo by Elliott Stallion on Unsplash

Nowadays, in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries consider introducing early voting in order to make polling stations (PSs) on the Election Day less busy. However, the critics say that it is not financially feasible to implement.

The formula below is an attempt to estimate how many polling stations for early voting a territory will need, taking into consideration that social distancing is required.

What variables would we need?

· Number of all eligible voters (for the cases when early voting is not restricted to a particular voting group, therefore, any voter could potentially cast a vote during early voting);
· Average number of voters a PS can serve at once (this would largely depends on the setting of PSs and the measure of social distancing: to put it shortly, how many voters could be simultaneously accommodated in a PS to guarantee a minimum required distance between them);
· Average voting time per voter (either in minutes or hours, but consistent with all variables);
· Working time per day per PS (either in minutes or hours, but consistent with all variables);
· Number of days when early voting is available.

Calculating steps:
1. Average number of voters a PS can serve at once ÷ Average voting time per voter in minutes = Voters per minute

2. Voters per minute × Working time per day per PS in minutes = Average number of voters per day per PS

3. Average number of voters per day per PS × Number of days when early voting is available = Average number of voters per all working days per PS

4. Number of all eligible voters ÷Average number of voters per all working days per PS = Number of PSs required

As an example, let’s consider a precinct A with the following characteristics:

Number of all eligible voters: 100 000;
Average number of voters a PS can serve at once: 7;
Average voting time per voter (in minutes): 5;
Working time per day per PS(in minutes): 480;
Number of days when early voting is available: 5;

1. 7÷5 =1,4
2. 1,4×480 = 672
3. 672×5= 3360
4. 100 000÷3360=29,8

Thus, for a precinct with 100 000 of eligible voters, with polling stations able to accommodate simultaneously on average 7 voters, each polling station open for 8 hours for 5 days, and average voting time per voter being 5 minutes, at least 30 polling stations will be needed.