Election Quality
If you are like me, you were happy to put the recent
presidential election behind us. Given the vote counting mess in
As the pundits were explaining the problems with establishing an operational definition of what was a valid vote, I kept thinking that from a quality perspective we were concentrating on the wrong area. I kept thinking about those punch card voting machines and thinking about the variation in the quality, thickness, moisture, perforations on the ballots that needed to be punched. I was thinking about the punching machine calibration, sharpness, and maintenance. I was thinking about our normal propensity to blame someone when we should be looking at the processes and the system.
Since then I have been ruminating over the fact that only about 50 % of the population voted and that means that only 25% of us really elected the new president. Those other 50%, are they significantly different from the 50% who did vote? What would have happened if 100% of the people voted? Our fragile voting processes would have really been over whelmed.
Consider that many companies are now shooting for six sigma levels of quality. That is 3.4 mistakes in a million opportunities. It is a known statistic that punch card systems have an error rate upwards of 5%. That, by itself, results in 50,000 errors in a million. Is that fair to voters? I don't think so. And remember that is only one source of error. Most businesses would be out of business if they performed this poorly.
Let’s look at this from another perspective. What if we consider the voter as the customer? Not only would we make sure that the vote that is cast is registered correctly as discussed above, but we would consider many other things. We would truly inform the voter about the candidates in an efficient manner. We would want to mistake-proof the process of casting the vote. We would want to make sure that the lighting is good; that there are no distractions; that it is a pleasant experience, not like running a gauntlet as is the case at many polling places; that there is secrecy; that we have assurance that a person can only vote once; that there is a standard method for voting since we are a very mobile society; that we don't have to wait in line to vote too long , preferably not at all; that we are trained on how to use the voting method; that we can see and understand the ballot; that the ballot has been tested to ensure that it is clear and not confusing; that the ballots will be counted correctly; that the place to vote will be convenient; that we know where to vote and when we get there be allowed to vote.
Is that too much to ask? I don't think so. If we can put most
of these election quality improvement ideas in place, voting could be a
pleasure. Mistakes will be very few. Maybe the other 50% of the population
would vote. We should plan for success.