The Maryland voting machine debacle in 2006 is the best example of why Work Measurement should be used in government. True the Diebold touch screen voting machines were flawed they did not posses the paper trail backup needed and being a unreliable computer system means their availability on polling day was unreliable.

Here is the real problem with all touch screen voting machines when used exclusively is that the voter must use the machine during the entire voting process. That means it could take from 5 to 15 minutes or longer for each voter to cast his vote. While the voter only uses the paper ballot scanning machine for a maximum of 5 seconds. It is easy to see that voters using only the touch screen machines could stand in line for hours to cast their ballot.

When you do Work Measurement (In this case a machine utilization study) on this process you will find that the paper scanning machine is as much as 800 times more efficient than the touch screen machine. I could not find any place in all the discussion of why the touch screen voting machines failed did the reason of machine utilization emerge. One of the major reasons this problem went unnoticed is that the touch screens were used in local elections and were thrown out before the 2008 presidential election. If the touch screens had been used there would have been a complete meltdown of the voting process in the 2008 Maryland presidential election. Most states get around this problem by using both the touch screen and the ballot scanning machines.

Example from Foxnews:
Maryland’s recent decision to dump touch-screen voting machines in favor of a paper ballot system could come back to haunt voters, said the lead researcher on a study of voting technology.
The new report found that while every voting system tested had flaws, touch-screen machines — which Maryland uses — met the top criteria of the study: They were the most user-friendly.
Paul Herrnson, the study’s principal investigator and a University of Maryland professor, said that in light of the report, Maryland’s choice to change from touch-screen machines to an optical-scan system is ill-advised.

Second example: Maryland House votes to oust Diebold machines By Marc L. Songini March 10, 2006
The state of Maryland stands poised to put its entire $90 million investment in Diebold Election Systems Inc. touch-screen e-voting systems on ice because they can’t produce paper receipts.
The state House of Delegates this week voted 137-0 to approve a bill prohibiting election officials from using AccuVote-TSx touch-screen systems in 2006 primary and general elections.

The point is that of the personnel buying the voting machines, the election officials using the machines and the legislature voting to scrap the machines; none were aware of the need to do a machine utilization study. This would not have occurred in private industry.

The really big problem is that Work Measurement for staffing purposes is not done in government resulting as much as 10% over staffing. For the state of Maryland this amounts to $132,100,000 from my Article 106. Where do the Government Reform Savings Come From?