Election Day Routing of Rapid Response Attorneys

Abstract

Since the United States presidential election of 2000, political campaigns have deployed volunteer lawyers to provide real-time information and assistance to poll observers. To assist with the routing of these rapid response attorneys (RRAs) among polling locations, we formulate two optimization models to equitably and efficiently allocate volunteer resources. We propose heuristic solution procedures based on simulated and compressed annealing and describe how our efforts to route RRAs in one state benefited election day operations during the 2012 election.

A concise guide to existing and emerging vehicle routing problem variants

“…The aim is to balance the workload allocation in order to ensure acceptance of operational plans, to maintain employee satisfaction and morale, to reduce overtime, and to reduce bottlenecks in resource utilization. Practical examples include balancing the workload of service technicians (Blakeley et al 2003), home healthcare professionals (Liu 2013), and volunteers (Goodson 2014). Balancing criteria also appear in periodic settings (Groër andGolden 2009, Mendoza et al 2009) and in tactical planning problems such as service territory design (Butsch et al 2014, Kalcsics 2015.…”

Workload Equity in Vehicle Routing Problems: A Survey and Analysis

“…To reduce overtime and improve acceptance of the routing plan among drivers, the total travel distance is minimized subject to constraints on the duration and the load of the vehicles. Goodson (2014) describes the election day routing of rapid response attorneys to poll observers in the United States.…”