Elections Officials Operational Toolkit

Administering voting by mail alongside in-person voting locations requires significant planning and resources. This Elections Official Operational Toolkit contains two tools that can help election officials consider staffing, space, and other resource needs to best serve voters.

Vote-By-Mail Calculator

The Vote-By-Mail Calculator is a user-friendly Excel spreadsheet inspired by the polling place resource planning tools built by Aaron Strauss, Mark Pelczarski, Stephen Graves, and Rong Yuan. Like those tools, it allows election officials to input data and simulate multiple scenarios to improve resource allocation. This tool was created by Katy Peters, prepared with funding and support from the Democracy Fund, and it is administered by NVAHI.

Polling Place Planner

The Polling Place Planner consists of a web app and an accompanying workbook. This tool enables elections officials to estimate wait times at polling places and assess equipment and staffing needs, including COVID-19 precautions such as cleaning and PPE. These tools were created by Mark Pelczarski with support from the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, Center for Technology and Civic Life, and Leadership Now; they are administered by Mark Pelczarski and NVAHI, respectively.