Participation in election poll monitoring offers students an ultimate civics lesson.

Last November, twenty undergraduate students from the College of Business Administration were among the 200 volunteers who turned out on Election Day to monitor polling activities at more than 150 locations across Miami-Dade County.

Karen Paul

The undergraduate students were all enrolled in the International Business Ethics class taught by Karen Paul, professor, Department of Management and International Business. As part of an “extra credit” assignment, Paul helped coordinate her students’ participation in the election poll monitoring process, which was coordinated by the Miami-Data Election Reform Coalition (MDERC), a non-partisan, grassroots organization dedicated to election reform. 

Florida state law entitles the public to observe election workers as they operate and close polling places, to count the number of citizens who vote, and electronically, to tally the results from touch-screen voting machines.

“MDERC takes that law to heart,” said Bonnie Daniels, MDERC project coordinator. “Our organization is committed to protecting the rights of every eligible voter to cast a ballot and to have that ballot accurately recorded and counted.”

Students document their experiences.

“As part of the poll-closing observation project sponsored by the MDERC, students first attended training sessions, then reported to various precincts to observe the vote counting and reporting process on Election Day,” Paul said. “Afterward, as part of the class assignment, they were required to report back on any problems that they had observed and felt should be addressed by election officials.”

In a series of written summaries, the students provided feedback that covered a variety of issues and recommendations for consideration, such as thoughts on upgrading the training of poll workers, dealing with broken machines, and educating the polling site clerks to understand more thoroughly the Florida law that requires that members of the public be admitted to observer vote counting.

In her report, Kimberly Davis observed that, at her polling place, “the whole process was very fast because the poll workers were efficient and did not make any mistakes.”

Diana Garayar had a similarly positive experience, noting, “It gave me peace of mind knowing that the votes in the precinct I observed were counted fairly.”

The students also observed many of the challenges that poll workers face as part of the Election Day process as they strove to ensure that each and every vote was correctly counted and included in the final ballot tallies. In some cases, student volunteers were at first questioned about the purpose of their presence, because poll workers were unaware that the students had a legal right be there.

Both Adriana Cespedes and Yenisebel Coro commented on the conscientiousness of the poll workers.

“I found it interesting how the ladies at our polling site counted and counted until the number of votes matched the number of signatures,” Cespedes said. “It turned out one of the voting machines was broken, so they needed to verify the number of votes on the machine. Two hours after the last voter left, all votes were at last accurately tabulated.”

Coro noted that the group that she worked with was “very cautious about doing the process correctly.” 

Daniels was delighted to see the college’s students become so involved in the electoral process.

“We often hear anecdotally from our volunteers,” she said. “But the reports submitted by Paul’s students helped us gain a clearer insight into how our volunteers perceive the polling observation experience.”

No business school education is complete without community involvement.

The poll-observation project builds on the college’s long history of involvement in community service and service learning.

“We feel it’s important for our students to take what they learn in the classroom and apply it to what is happening in the community around them,” Paul said. “I heard back from many of them that they felt participating in the poll-closing observation project was an interesting and useful ‘real-world’ activity—one that I believe was of value to them on multiple fronts.”

According to Yvette Rodriquez, the experience was one that she will never forget.

“I strong believe in the efforts of the MDERC because they create a sense of accountability,” she said. “I would like to participate in this observation process again. Observing the poll closings is a right we should not take for granted.”

In addition to providing her students with firsthand exposure to the American democratic polling process in action, the training session and polling site activities enabled them to get to know people from all different sectors of the local community.

The project also allowed Paul’s students to learn how organizations work and how policies get implemented.

“They came to appreciate the importance of proper training as well as the value of having mechanisms in place for constructive feedback,” Paul said. “The training process was very well defined, and my students knew exactly what was expected of them. It was a wonderful, rewarding experience for everyone involved.”

Christian Contreras agrees, and he encourages others to participate in election poll monitoring activities should the opportunity arise.

“I definitely would recommend that anyone who has not been able to experience voting firsthand take the time to monitor a poll closing. Even for someone like me, who has voted in an election, the experience proved to be interesting,” he said.