The Nation’s First Sample-Based Poll Observation Will Be in D.C. This Election Day — and You Can Help
“It kind of blows my mind that independent election oversight doesn’t exist in the United States”
The District of Columbia might not have a vote in Congress, but this November 6 the city will be the stage for a nationwide pilot on elections integrity.
Observe DC is a project to conduct the first ever sample-based election monitoring in the United States. It aims to generate representative data about the quality of election administration in the District.
Many municipalities in the U.S. use poll observers, but observers typically observe only individual locations, and rarely remain at a location for the entire day. That means their observations are anecdotal and cannot be used to inform how a jurisdiction is administering elections as a whole.
On November 6, Observe DC will send 83 trained volunteer poll observers to a representative random sample of the District of Columbia’s 143 polling locations. Volunteers will arrive at 6:30 that morning and will remain at their designated location until the poll close that night. At six predetermined times throughout the day volunteers will call in to a central call center to report their observations. Call center volunteers will record data about all 83 locations over the 14-hour period and aggregate them into a central database.
Observers will watch for a number of things, including whether the location opened on time and whether it had all necessary materials and staff. They’ll note whether wheelchair users must use an elevator, whether the location has handicapped parking spaces available, and whether the option for curbside voting exists. They’ll also watch for more extreme incidents like whether the location fails to open, whether anyone is barred from voting, or if there is violence at the polls. They will also be taking the vote count throughout the day at key times to get a sense of when people are voting and within a margin of error, the turnout throughout the day.
The project is led by Ben Mindes, a graduate student at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. Prior to launching Observe DC, Mindes was a program officer on elections and political processes at the National Democratic Institute, which assists with election integrity in developing nations.
“Our hypothesis is that DC elections are administered fairly well,” said Mindes, in an interview. “We’re aiming to build confidence in our approach with a friendly administrative body. DC’s Board of Elections is aware of this project and are interested in seeing the results. Our hope is that we’ll be able to collect independent data that shows what elections are really like in DC, so that everyone in the city can better target electoral reform efforts.”
A comprehensive look at voting across the District
Part of the goal of the project is to collect a large enough amount of data to make objective observations about how elections are administered in the District, including what’s going well and what’s not.
Mindes plans to compile the information from November 6 into a final report that will go to the DC Board of Elections to inform future poll operations. He is also working with national election integrity advocates about what they can learn from this first-of-its-kind project.
“Any time there’s any public feedback, it’s going to be useful,” said Rachel E. Coll, Public Information Officer with the DC Board of Elections, in an interview.
“We get feedback from the public on hourly basis by way of social media, emails, and calls, especially during early voting. If this project shares their findings with the agency, of course there will be some constructive criticism in terms and just like any other public comments we look forward to hearing it.”
Early voting is already open in DC at One Judiciary Square, and will begin at several more locations around the city next week. DCBOE’s website now shows estimated wait times at early voting locations, thanks in part to their own real-time data collection.
“The whole goal behind early voting is to alleviate some of the early waiting and rushing on election day,” said Coll. “We’re doing our best to accommodate requests for early voting locations and make voting as convenient as possible.”
A model for elections nationwide
Mindes also plans to share the results of this pilot with national election integrity advocates, with the goal of helping other groups across the country monitor elections on their own.
“There generally there aren’t many non-partisan, civil society observation groups in the United States,” said Julia Brothers, senior program manager for elections and political processes at the National Democratic Institute and advisor to the Observe DC project, in an interview. “There are some from Canada and the E.U., but they tend to focus on places where they think there might be more corruption. As far as we know this is the first citizen observation project to do this systematically, and it’s unique in that way.”
Brothers pointed to groups like the League of Women Voters as some of the few groups in the country who pay attention to how voting is administered. Mindes has been working with the League’s DC Chapter on the Observe DC project, and is considering sharing the model with chapters nationwide.
“Our main priority is encouraging people to get out and vote,” said Kathy Chiron, president of the DC Chapter of the League of Women Voters.
“DC has a lot to improve on voter turnout and that’s our main focus as an organization. That said, the League of Women Voters US has gone to court over election integrity issues, making sure everyone who is entitled to vote has the ability to do so is one of our core missions. We certainly don’t hope that the researchers here in DC will find problems but we’ll be interested to know more about how well elections are administered one way or the other.”
How you can help
Observe DC still needs volunteers for Election Day. Volunteers will go through a half-day training in preparation and will be fully credentialed from the DC Board of Elections. They’ll receive a stipend and a certificate of participation — plus the satisfaction of knowing they helped make elections more fair in DC and potentially beyond.
Trainings for call center volunteers will be held the week of October 29, and poll observers on November 3 and 4.
Why this matters
The recent news about potential voter suppression in Georgia and disenfranchisement of Native Americans in North Dakota are only the latest developments in the ongoing conversation about how elections in the United States could be more representative.
Fair elections are one of the fundamental components of American democracy, and questions about whether our elections are fair and accurately reflective of the will of voters have perhaps never loomed as large as they do right now.
Cities and municipalities, for their part, play a crucial role in whether elections are carried out fairly.
“It kind of blows my mind that independent election oversight doesn’t exist in the United States, and that all the information we get about how well polling places are run come from the people who are running them,” Mindes said.
“In some places you might have a lot of trust in that institution, and in some places you might need more trust to be built.”
