To Queue or Not To Queue?
In a U.S. Presidential Election, that should NOT be a question!
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by Alex S. Belenky, Richard C. Larson. Published in OR/MS Today

June 2006

Introducation
Will the 2008 U.S. presidential election be decided by election queues?
We don't know, but operations research could be used to make every vote count and help secure the integrity of the voting process.

Queues in U.S. presidential elections first drew national attention in the 2000 election, when voters queued for more than two hours to cast their votes in some counties in Florida [1], and the election hours were extended due to the queues in some battleground states [2]. In the 2004 election, Ohio voters queued for as many as 10 hours in some precincts in Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo [3], and long queues were reported in other states as well [4, 5, 6].

Besides the inconvenience of waiting, why is this important? Think of two words from queueing theory: balking and reneging. Potential voters who see a long queue may balk from entering it. Others may enter the queue but leave it later, renege, due to frustration at the slow pace of the line. Unwillingness to wait may be due to time personal constraints, such as job or family obligations, or maybe just impatience. If those who balk or renege are differentially more from one political party than another, then the party most affected will complain, saying that some of "its voters" did not vote due to long lines.