After promoting the quick count, building a volunteer network, training observers and setting up a data collection system, election day arrives. At headquarters, phones begin to ring, volunteers key in data, and analysts compile reports. At this point, organizers celebrate the technical success of the quick count. What is often underestimated, however, is the difficulty of the work that immediately follows—managing and releasing quick count results.

The random sample is drawn, observer forms are developed and distributed and observers are recruited and trained. On election day, observers take up positions at assigned polling stations and get ready to collect and report the data. This chapter deals with the next steps. The chapter begins with a discussion of data reporting protocols. It explains how and when observers report data on the quality of the process and the vote count results. Some of the problems associated with information flows on election day, and practical solutions to those problems, are discussed.

In many election observations the final vote count attracts the most attention. This is entirely understandable. The vote count determines election day winners and losers, and the integrity of that count is a longstanding concern in many countries. The final count, however, is just one aspect of an election. No one doubts that an accurate, honest vote count is a necessary condition for a democratic election, but it is not a sufficient condition. Electoral outcomes too often have been rigged in ways that have little or nothing to do with the counting and tabulation of results.

The quick count methodology applies statistical principles to a very practical problem—verifying an electoral outcome.¹ This chapter outlines those statistical principles and describes how they work together. The briefest way to present this information is to use the language of mathematics, and to a certain extent that language is unavoidable. The goal of this chapter, however, is to present the basic concepts in a non-technical way so that the logic behind quick count methodology is accessible to a general audience.

Quick counts cannot happen without well-organized and trained volunteer networks. Most of the hundreds or thousands of people that form these networks live and work outside the capital city and are not readily visible to the organization’s leadership, international donors and the press. Their often heroic efforts go virtually unnoticed. A case in point:

A quick count can be a technical success yet a public relations failure. All of the hard work is for naught if key audiences—civic leaders, political parties, electoral authorities, the international community and others—do not view the organization or the results as credible. When influential groups doubt either the motives of the organizers or the validity of the data, the quick count’s contribution to the election-day process is marginal to negative. For this reason, building credibility must be a priority for every group planning a quick count.