"Accuracy, Resilience and Denial" and Their Impact on Elections
[Image courtesy of boingboing]
One of my favorite non-election blogs is that of marketing guru Seth Godin, who has written numerous books on various aspects of how to succeed in marketing, business and life.
I was especially taken with a recent post that discussed the different ways an individual or organization can deal with the need to succeed in the face of uncertainty. In it, he says that accuracy, resilience and denial are
… three ways to deal with the future.
Accuracy is the most rewarding way to deal with what will happen tomorrow–if you predict correctly. Accuracy rewards those that put all their bets on one possible outcome. The thing is, accuracy requires either a significant investment of time and money, or inside information (or luck, but that’s a different game entirely). Without a reason to believe that you’ve got better information than everyone else, it’s hard to see how you can be confident that this is a smart bet.
Resilience is the best strategy for those realistic enough to admit that they can’t predict the future with more accuracy than others. Resilience isn’t a bet on one outcome, instead, it’s an investment across a range of possible outcomes, a way to ensure that regardless of what actually occurs (within the range), you’ll do fine.
And denial, of course, is the strategy of assuming that the future will be just like today.
If you enter a winner-take-all competition against many other players, accuracy is generally the only rational play. Consider a cross-country ski race. If 500 people enter and all that matters is first place, then you and your support team have to make a very specific bet on what the weather will be like as you wax your skis. Picking a general purpose wax is the resilient strategy, but you’ll lose out to the team that’s lucky enough or smart enough to pick precisely the right wax for the eventual temperature.
Of course, and this is the huge of course, most competitions aren’t winner take all. Most endeavors we participate in offer long-term, generous entrants plenty of rewards. Playing the game is a form of winning the game. In those competitions, we win by being resilient.
Unfortunately, partly due to our fear of losing as well as our mythologizing of the winner-take-all, we often make two mistakes. The first is to overdo our focus on accuracy, on guessing right, on betting it all on the ‘right’ answer. We underappreciate just how powerful long-term resilience can be.
And the second mistake is to be so overwhelmed by all the choices and all the apparent risk that instead of choosing the powerful path of resilience, we choose not to play at all. Denial rarely pays.
As I read the post, I couldn’t help but think about the different ways that election officials cope with the uncertainty of turnout and other factors that affect the conduct of elections.
The “accuracy” play involves better forecasting of turnout and other resources on Election Day; done properly, it can ensure that all voters receive a ballot in a timely manner and the results are tabulated and published on a predictable schedule. Experience tells us, however, that predicting turnout and other factors is as difficult as predicting the weather (indeed, it’s often AFFECTED by the weather) and so the risk in relying solely on forecasting is that polls will have either too many or too few resources on Election Day – letting citizens down as voters, taxpayers or both.
Denial, in my opinion, is a reliance on “the way we’ve always done it” or conforming blindly and unquestioningly to the letter of applicable laws and regulations. When this happens, any problems at the polls can be explained away by bad luck or failure of policymakers to change the law.
Like Seth, I think resilience is the best approach; while we can do a better job of forecasting turnout and other factors – and relying on election laws is generally a duty not an option – the field can still foster and support a culture of resilience for the inevitable times when life happens while we were making other plans.
The best election officials I know (including Johnson County’s Brian Newby, who recently shared a story about Election Day 2012 that I’m going to take a look at tomorrow) understand that while planning is essential, it’s necessary for the entire election structure – from the chief election official all the way up to the pollworkers at the precinct – to keep a clear head and an open mind when life on Election Day doesn’t go according to plan.