The integrity of our electoral processes is under constant scrutiny, and the stakes have never been higher for election administrators. Imagine stepping into the office each day, tasked with ensuring that every vote counts, yet grappling with complex procedures and high turnover that threaten the consistency of your operations. For new administrators, the intricacies of elections can feel overwhelming, creating challenges in maintaining trust and efficiency. This is where the power of process modeling comes into play—it’s not just about documentation; it’s about fostering a culture of clarity, accountability, and confidence in our democratic systems. By making the unseen processes visible, we can empower administrators, inspire new staff, and build stronger communities, ensuring that every election reflects the will of the voters.

The Turnout has a proven record of effectively modeling some of the most complex processes, empowering government, non-profit, and corporate stakeholders to understand and document their standard operating procedures. Most of our process modeling has been in elections, including for RABET-V, a verification program for non-voting election technology. In a previous post, we discussed the value process modeling provides when procuring a new technology, such as a new voter registration system. However, process modeling offers many other benefits, including making the election process more accessible, understandable, and transparent to new hires and non-experts.

In today's dynamic organizational environments, process modeling is a tool for efficiency and a cornerstone of process sustainability, innovation, and transparency. Organizations can better understand, refine, and communicate the workflows that drive their operations by visually mapping out processes. Here, we examine the critical aspects of process modeling and its significance in modern organizations.

Ensuring Continuity Through Documented Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Turnover is a reality for every organization. Employees may leave for various reasons, taking with them valuable institutional knowledge. For election officials, turnover rates have doubled over the past few years, according to the 2023 Elections and Voting Information Center Local Election Official survey. From 2000 to 2022, a 2024 Bipartisan Policy Center report found that election official turnover increased by 38%. While the faces and names in our election offices change, the work they must do and the services they must provide do not. Without documented processes, these departures can disrupt operations, lead to costly errors, and diminish organizational efficiency.

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), supported by detailed process models, safeguard against such risks. These documents ensure that:

• Knowledge is Retained: Process models act as visual and textual repositories of operational knowledge, preserving it for future employees. For election officials, knowledge retention ensures the smooth functioning of elections.
• Training is Streamlined: New hires can quickly understand their responsibilities and workflows, reducing onboarding time and effort. Many temporary employees must be trained in the lead-up to elections. Process models should form the basis of training and provide a visual and reliable tool for election officials to train poll workers and seasonal staff.
• Consistency is Maintained: Clear procedures form the prerequisite for uniform task performance, ensuring reliable outcomes even during periods of change. Detailed and confusing legal documents can be distilled into steps, easing compliance with legal mandates.

Transparency and Citizen Confidence

Demystifying processes through modeling can enhance citizen trust in election offices, which have been under scrutiny by voter-led initiatives in the past few years. When citizens understand how voting works, they are more likely to trust the election offices’ intentions and fairness.

Process modeling aids transparency by:

• Making Processes Accessible: Public-facing diagrams and summaries clarify workflows for non-experts. For example, visual portrayals of the election process help voters understand how their ballot gets tabulated.
• Encouraging Accountability: Clear documentation shows that processes are followed consistently and fairly. Voters’ understanding of logic and accuracy tests, chain of custody, and post-election audits improves transparency into the safeguards used to prevent fraud.
• Facilitating Feedback: Citizens can better engage in discussions about improvements when they understand the existing framework. Good election policy requires an in-depth understanding of operational realities. Having well-defined process models in each state and locality creates a shared context for internal innovation, citizen-led initiatives, and legislative changes to elections.

Our Process

The process models developed by The Turnout are visual. While natural language contains some ambiguity, well-designed diagrams developed in standard notation, such as Business Process Modeling Language (BPMN), are naturally clear and visually appealing.

Getting started means bringing together various perspectives from the people working with the process daily. This includes those who "own" the process, those who execute it, and increasingly, those who ensure its security and compliance. Our process experts, with over 15 years of experience, will run workshops to understand your processes, operating environments, and constraints. We have successfully built upon the NIST Election Model, using its 10,000-foot view as a blueprint and zooming in to capture the details that matter.

Process modeling is a critical investment for any organization, public or private. By documenting and analyzing workflows, organizations can safeguard institutional knowledge, prepare effectively for new systems, refine operations, and build stakeholder trust. Process modeling ensures that organizations remain resilient, efficient, and transparent in a world where change is constant.