Cochise County, Arizona Plans Elections with the Voting Time Estimator

I voted stickers on table

Tombstone, Arizona is the site of the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. More recently, during the November 2018 General Election, Tombstone was the location of 1 of Cochise County’s 17 vote centers.

But why 17? Why not 16 or 18?

Choosing the right number of vote centers is a real Goldilocks problem for election administrators. With too few, voters may need to travel great distances to vote, and long lines can form if big numbers of voters all go to the same center. On the other hand, having too many vote centers can waste county resources.

To help her tackle this challenge, Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra has used the Voting Time Estimator from ElectionTools.org. With the Estimator, Lisa forecasts how long it will take people to vote, helping her make decisions about how many vote centers are needed to avoid long wait times.

“I love this tool and use it every election,” Lisa reports.

Bisbee, Arizona with desert mountains in background

Bisbee, county seat for Cochise County. Photo courtesy of Cochise County.

The Voting Time Estimator does only one thing: estimate how long, on average, it will take voters to mark their ballots, based on what’s on the ballot and the voting equipment.

For the November election, ballots were pretty big in Cochise County. For example, the ballot for Precinct 33 in the city of Sierra Vista contains 27 items that break down into these categories:

  • 14 contested races
  • 2 uncontested races
  • 4 multiselect races, in which voters make 9 total selections
  • 5 propositions
  • 2 yes/no retention votes

If you take these details and enter them into the Estimator, as Lisa did, it projects an average vote time of 6 minutes.

Estimator shows 6 minutes as the average time to vote, with 90% confidence that time will fall between 5 and 7 minutes

Estimated vote time is 6 minutes for this ballot

That’s a time that didn’t worry Lisa too much in the lead up to November. She considered this time alongside the number of registered voters (about 86,000), the predicted turnout, and the fact that about 70% of voters here vote early.

There are other considerations, too.

“For us,” she adds, “it’s a matter of also factoring in electronic poll books, voters who vote a provisional ballot, and who may not be experienced in the touchscreen technology that our equipment is based on.”

Taking all these factors into account helped Lisa and her colleagues make judgments about the number of vote centers and their setup.

Lisa says the Estimator has been quite accurate in her experience, but she emphasizes that election officials need to consider voter preparedness.

“The challenge is that voters must be educated on the ballot prior to going to vote,” explains Lisa. “If they do their sample ballot and know the issues, the time is very spot on. The problem is when voters aren’t prepared and it takes them 40 minutes to read through the propositions at the vote centers on Election Day!”

For that reason, Lisa’s office encourages voters to do their homework — especially on propositions.

All in all, Lisa says the Estimator has proven handy for Election Day preparation, and she encourages other election administrators to use it.

“We’ve found it useful in planning out our vote centers and layout when it comes to determining how much equipment and how many poll workers we need,” she says. “I hope more people take advantage of it when it comes to planning for time on Election Day.”