Multidisciplinary Team Developing Model to Streamline Polling Operations and Address Disparities

A multidisciplinary research project funded by an Internal Seed Grant from UML's Office of Research Development is developing a mathematical model to improve poll worker assignment and voting machine allocation across electoral precincts.
08/12/2024
By Ed Brennen
In the 2020 U.S. presidential election, 22% of Black voters waited in line for more than 30 minutes to cast their ballots in person compared with 17% of white voters, according to a Pew Research Center .听
A multidisciplinary team of UMass Lowell faculty researchers is working on a way to address this disparity while reducing wait times for everyone.
Belleh Fontem, an assistant professor of operations and information systems (OIS) in the Manning School of Business, is the principal investigator on a project that is developing a mathematical model to improve poll worker assignment and voting machine allocation across electoral precincts.听
The two-year project, which includes faculty from the Political Science and Mathematics & Statistics departments, as well as an undergraduate student, recently received an Internal Seed Grant of nearly $11,000 from UML鈥檚 Office of Research Development.
鈥淭here is documented evidence to show that waiting times are quite high in traditionally minority-dominated areas,鈥 Fontem says. 鈥淲e are looking for ways to have a more equitable allocation of voting resources.鈥
The project鈥檚 findings could help public officials run elections that are more fair and efficient. That鈥檚 important, Fontem says, because voter disenfranchisement can erode faith in democracy.

Belleh Fontem, an assistant professor of operations and information systems in the Manning School of Business, is the principal investigator on the project.
Leading the project along with Fontem is OIS Asst. Prof. Nichalin Summerfield. Starting this fall, she will collaborate with Political Science Prof. Joshua Dyck to develop a queueing simulation model that shows the relationship between voting resource allocation and average wait times.
鈥淲e have to make sure the model is an accurate representation of the real world,鈥 Summerfield says. 鈥淗ow long does it take for a person to check in? How long do they interact with the voting machine?鈥
Jacob Milligan, a rising junior mathematics major, will then implement the simulation model in MATLAB, a programming platform.听
Milligan learned about the project after a chance encounter with Fontem at the North Campus Starbucks, where he was working.听Fontem was reading a mathematics book that interested Milligan, and they struck up a conversation. Fontem wound up inviting Milligan to join the research project, a paid opportunity that the Bellingham, Massachusetts, native 鈥渃ouldn鈥檛 refuse.鈥

Nichalin Summerfield, an assistant professor of operations and information systems, is co-principal investigator on the project.
Next, Fontem and Milligan, along with Mathematics & Statistics Assoc. Prof. Hung Phan, will develop an optimization algorithm in MATLAB that will iteratively improve the allocation strategy.
鈥淲ith a simulation optimization project like this, you model something and then pass that information to another model, which tries to make it better,鈥 Fontem explains. 鈥淭hen it proposes a new configuration, which must be simulated. You pass the information back and forth between the models, and with each iteration, you hopefully improve until you converge on a stable configuration.鈥
While the algorithm will be customized for voting resources, Fontem says it could be used to optimize other processes such as inventory management or electronic circuit design.
The third step of the project involves sensitivity analysis, which tests the model against potential variables in the voting process.
鈥淟et鈥檚 say a district is redrawn and the number of people that go to a precinct increases tremendously. What would happen?鈥 Summerfield says. 鈥淥r what if there is a change to the voting machine interface and it takes people less time to vote? We can play with an increase or decrease in those parameters.鈥
The final phase will be a return-on-investment analysis, which will investigate how the varying budget levels of voting precincts influence the efficiency and fairness of the model.
Although the mathematical model won鈥檛 be finished in time to help shorten wait times for this November鈥檚 election, Fontem hopes that when the research is eventually published, it will make an impact.听
Fontem, who co-teaches a course with Summerfield called Prescriptive Analytics and Simulation, says their papers 鈥渢end to be quite mathematical, with a very narrow audience.鈥 So they plan to work with Dyck on an executive summary geared toward policymakers.
鈥淗opefully it鈥檚 a conversation starter that gets them thinking about these issues,鈥 says Fontem, who hopes to apply for additional funding from the Public Interest Fellowship鈥檚 National Security Grant Program.
Fontem notes that the number of democracies around the world has been on the decline over the past decade.
鈥淥ne of the ways that you can weaken your democracy is to decrease the citizens鈥 confidence in the process,鈥 he says. 鈥淓ven if you live in a place with enough access to voting resources and you think it鈥檚 not your problem, you鈥檝e got to think again, because if there are people in your state who can鈥檛 trust the electoral process, that鈥檚 going to weaken social cohesion and trust in public institutions. And that doesn鈥檛 bode well for anyone.鈥