Replay: Books & Ballots Conversation on Operational Improvements and Tools from the Engineering for Democracy Institute

How can engineering tools help election officials solve complex operational challenges? What innovations are available to support planning, resource allocation, and ballot management? And how can election administrators partner with STEM professionals to build the next generation of solutions?

In this webinar, we spoke with the Engineering for Democracy Institute (EDI) about tools designed specifically for election administrators. The session highlighted practical applications including VoteTime.app to estimate voter wait times, VBMTime.app to project vote-by-mail processing workloads, BallotStorage.app to calculate warehouse space and storage costs, and VoteLayout.app to design polling place layouts.

EDI also shared how engineering methods and direct collaboration with election officials are improving efficiency, resilience, and planning, and discussed opportunities to engage with STEM professionals through its Science for Election Needs (S4EN) initiative.