July 12, 2005

Comments and Preliminary Observations following the June 29th Election Assessment Hearing
Record of Submissions Published

On June 29, 2005, Election Assessment conducted an initial hearing in Houston, Texas to identify how to understand election process quality in the United States and to foster election process improvement.  Researchers, academics, computer scientists, election officials, concerned citizens and process observers presented testimony and evidence pertaining to the quality of voting processes, describing concerns such as vote result irregularities, lost votes and miscounts, voter suppression, ballot access issues, election administration practices, and defects associated with voting technology.

This initial record must be assessed for validity and further appropriate actions must be taken to establish a sound basis for understanding and improving the quality of election processes on a factual basis.  This foundation is essential for election administrators, policymakers, standards bodies, advisors and other voting participants to assure the integrity and reliability of vote processes.

In accordance with standards of documentation generally upheld in the case of public policy initiatives, we have compiled the complete record of documents submitted to us, and we are providing it for review to private and public stewards of election processes, as well as to the general public. This record may be accessed here.^[1]   We will issue a report of preliminary assessments, findings and recommendations related to the evidence we have received shortly.

^[1] This record, the raw results of an ongoing survey to identify election process requirements, has not yet been subjected to review and assessment.
 

Some Preliminary Observations Regarding Information Quality Readiness in Election Processes:

• The record shows clear signs of an awakening of understanding of the need to assure the reliability and accuracy of the election processes by which the public chooses their elected officials.
• There are some initial signs of recognition that managing information quality in elections may be of value, and some team efforts have been initiated to attack major problems, but at the action level these efforts have not reached even the level of short-range "motivational" campaigns, let alone the establishment of reliable preventive processes.  We are not sure that the question of whether it is absolutely necessary to always have problems with information quality, has yet been broached in a forthright manner in the public discourse regarding elections in America.
• There appears to be considerable uncertainty regarding organizational support for election process and vote count quality.  It appears that in many cases issues of how to support information quality are being treated as if they are matters to be left to application and technology development.
• There are indications that the role of data audits in assuring the quality of the information produced by election processes is not understood or implemented well.
• Any errors in the election processes that prevent citizens from voting or that cause their vote to be cast incorrectly as compared to their intent, or counted incorrectly as compared to their intent, result in disenfranchisement of those citizens.
• There is considerable rancor and dispute in the manner in which issues regarding the quality of vote counts are handled.  Definitions of basic concepts are inadequate; problems are raised without resolution.  Communication channels for corrective actions have not been established.  Problems are not faced openly and resolved in an orderly way.

We Presently Recognize a Need to Undertake the Following General Steps:

• Encourage the establishment of accountability for the quality of election processes and the information they produce
• Foster the application of sound principles and clearly defined processes to assure election process and information quality
• Perform a factual analysis of the systemic barriers to information quality in United States elections
• Survey stakeholders in the election process to understand the quality of the process
• Encourage the establishment of clearly defined roles for stewardship of election information process quality
• Support fact-based quality assessment and improvement projects initiated by citizens, election process stewards and other election participants, which may provide reliable baselines against which success may be gauged
• Perform appropriate analyses of costs of election processes and corrective measures necessitated to correct causes of defects
• Encourage the establishment of processes to:
• Establish definitions and common understanding of requirements
• Analyze and establish common understanding of the elements of the election process
• Measure the quality of the election processes and the information they produce
• Measure the costs of election processes and of corrective actions for nonquality results
• Establish processes for correcting vote errors, including audit, recount and revote processes
• Improve election processes on an ongoing basis until we have near zero defects in them

A video DVD set of the initial June 29th Election Assessment Hearing will be available soon. If interested in acquiring a copy, please send your inquiry to: dvd@electionassessment.org