CEQI Leadership Team, Advisory Committee and Partner Organizations
Click here to learn more about our Leadership Team, Advisory Committee members, and Partner Organizations. If you would like information about joining CEQI, please submit your information.
Voting Process Satisfaction Survey
CEQI conducted the Voting Process Satisfaction Survey in December 2022 to learn more about voter perceptions related to election quality. Based on the responses from 2,235 ASQ members, a large majority of respondents feel it is “appropriately easy to vote” in US elections and that their vote in the last general elections was “counted as intended”. Almost half expressed some concerns about integrity, however, and felt that “cheating in the electoral system” may need a closer look.
Specifically, 86% of respondents feel that “it is appropriately easy to vote”, and 92% expressed confidence that their vote was counted correctly “as they intended.” Only 57% agreed with the statement that “cheating the electoral system is very rare,” and 24% disagreed or strongly disagreed. The remaining 18% responded they had mixed feelings about cheating (17%) or needed more information (1%). “The fact that 43% of all respondents had some concern about cheating tells us there is work to do in quantifying the extent of election fraud through valid measurement, and in documenting its root cause,” said CEQI Chair Kerry Bass. “We believe that our work in documenting operational best practices and establishing a ‘voice of the customer’ confidence measures can provide the critical resources needed by the American public to have complete trust in their selection of government leaders.”
“Despite the fact that a majority of ASQ members are generally confident about election operations, the lack of complete confidence expressed by between 25-44% should be of concern to quality professionals,” said CEQI Chair-Elect Richard Mallory. Operations in 2023 will attempt to address these concerns, through identification of best practice election operations, and certification of the maturity of quality practices in all election operations. “There is no good reason for allowing these concerns to remain unaddressed,” said Mallory.
The CEQI American Elections Initiative is also working in partnership with the University of Georgia at Athens, and its School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), working to collaborate with existing election organizations to locate and review best practice information to include in its workflow modeling. The initiative also depends on the participation of state, municipal and local election organizations and their subject matter experts. This working group is now being assembled, and will be asked to review and comment on standardized best practice workflows as they are developed. CEQI goals focus on developing these best practice operational models and benchmarks so that volunteer pilot elections organizations can be validated for quality of operations by the end of 2023 and other election organizations can volunteer to be validated prior to the 2024 general elections.
Thanks again to the ASQ community for providing such a robust response to our survey. To request additional information or to volunteer for future CEQI activities, please submit your information.
CEQI’s position paper, Advancing a Quality Management System For US Elections, is available for download