Method to allocate voting resources with unequal ballots and/or education

摘要

Apportionment in election systems refers to determination of the number of voting resources (poll books, poll workers, or voting machines) needed to ensure that all voters can expect to wait no longer than an appropriate amount, even the voter who waits the longest. Apportionment is a common problem for election officials and legislatures. A related problem is “allocation,” which relates to the deployment of an existing number of resources so that the longest expected wait is held to an appropritate amount. Provisioning and allocation are difficult because the numbers of expected voters, the ballot lengths, and the education levels of voters may all differ significantly from precinct-to-precinct in a county. Consider that predicting the waiting time of the voter who waits the longest generally requires discrete event simulation.