Proceedings of the 2009 Winter Simulation Conference M. D.….pdfVIP

Proceedings of the 2009 Winter Simulation Conference M. D. Rossetti, R. R. Hill, B. Johansson, A. Dunkin, and R. G. Ingalls, eds. ARE ALL VOTING QUEUES CREATED EQUAL? Muer Yang Michael J. Fry W. David Kelton Department of Quantitative Analysis and Operations Management University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH 45221, U.S.A. ABSTRACT Providing equitable voting experiences across voting precincts has been noted as an important goal in elections. We seek to provide equity to all voters so that no one particular group of voters is disadvantaged or disenfranchised. This paper uses the average absolute differences of waiting times across all precincts as a performance metric for equity. A simulation-based greedy improvement algorithm is proposed to generate machine allocations. We examine our allocation method using a factorial experimental design, and we conclude that our heuristic outperforms the utilization-equalization method which was used by at least one county in the 2008 presidential election. 1 INTRODUCTION Election administration is a service provided to the voting public. As with other service systems, waiting lines are non-value- added activities and waiting time is viewed negatively. As discussed in Mebane (2005), waiting times to vote are directly correlated to voter turnout. As waiting times increase, more voters are forced to leave without having cast their ballots due to impatience and other time commitments. Thus, it is very important to design voting systems that result in voter