Comments on: Trusted Electoral Information http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/ A Website Dedicated to Information/Data Quality Disasters from Around the World Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:27:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/comment-page-1/#comment-157 Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen Sun, 02 Nov 2008 14:19:37 +0000 http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/#comment-157 As I understand the US public registration of citizens – and also the Irish – you can have a row with your name, address and birthday in several different registers, like an Electoral Register, a Driver License Register, a Social Security Register and so on. And then of course the names, addresses, birthdays could differ between these registers. How to fix this is one of the first things you learn about data modelling, and also a core practice in Master Data Management. What you do is having one register with a unique key for each person born in, moving to, working in a country. Name, address, birthday, gender, nationality will be obvious attributes. Then electoral authorities, driving license issuers, social security administration may have additional information needed for their specific area, but always referencing a citizen with the unique key – and thereby having name, address and birthday from the master. I know I am very naïve disregarding constitutions, politics, traditions, and so on, but as said, this is basicly how it have been working in Denmark for 40 years now. As I understand the US public registration of citizens – and also the Irish – you can have a row with your name, address and birthday in several different registers, like an Electoral Register, a Driver License Register, a Social Security Register and so on. And then of course the names, addresses, birthdays could differ between these registers.

How to fix this is one of the first things you learn about data modelling, and also a core practice in Master Data Management. What you do is having one register with a unique key for each person born in, moving to, working in a country. Name, address, birthday, gender, nationality will be obvious attributes. Then electoral authorities, driving license issuers, social security administration may have additional information needed for their specific area, but always referencing a citizen with the unique key – and thereby having name, address and birthday from the master.

I know I am very naïve disregarding constitutions, politics, traditions, and so on, but as said, this is basicly how it have been working in Denmark for 40 years now.

]]> By: Daragh O Brien http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/comment-page-1/#comment-156 Daragh O Brien Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:28:40 +0000 http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/#comment-156 Cripes... this story I found on rawstory.com is a bit worrying. It highlights the importance of quality of information design as part of any information quality process. http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=2316 Cripes… this story I found on rawstory.com is a bit worrying. It highlights the importance of quality of information design as part of any information quality process.

http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=2316

]]> By: Daragh O Brien http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/comment-page-1/#comment-155 Daragh O Brien Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:22:41 +0000 http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/#comment-155 This article (again from the Washington Post) suggests to me some 'concerns' in Virginia about electronic voting amongst other things. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103004224.html This article (again from the Washington Post) suggests to me some ‘concerns’ in Virginia about electronic voting amongst other things.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103004224.html

]]> By: Daragh O Brien http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/comment-page-1/#comment-154 Daragh O Brien Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:01:52 +0000 http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/#comment-154 And here is an article from the ASQ website about the problems in 2000... http://www.asq.org/advocacy/issues-actions/20041029electionprocess.html And here is an article from the ASQ website about the problems in 2000…
http://www.asq.org/advocacy/issues-actions/20041029electionprocess.html

]]> By: Daragh O Brien http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/comment-page-1/#comment-151 Daragh O Brien Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:09:04 +0000 http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/#comment-151 The Brennan Center has a good post on its blog about how the problems in state and Federal databases, combined with lack of clarity on voter registration forms can exclude candidates from voting. It can affect everyone... even <a href="http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/archives/joe_the_plumber_wurzelbacker_wurzebacher_wurzelbacher/" rel="nofollow">Joe the Plumber </a>(yes, that Joe the Plumber) The Brennan Center has a good post on its blog about how the problems in state and Federal databases, combined with lack of clarity on voter registration forms can exclude candidates from voting.

It can affect everyone… even Joe the Plumber (yes, that Joe the Plumber)

]]> By: Daragh O Brien http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/comment-page-1/#comment-150 Daragh O Brien Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:44:39 +0000 http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/#comment-150 The Washington Post has more coverage of the election issues in <a href = "http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/29/AR2008102904545.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=new" rel="nofollow">this article by Mary Pat Flaherty</a>. Henrik, I'm jealous of your country's system which seems to work so well. Ireland's is supposed to work like that as well but is plagued by problems the quality of the information (see <a href ="http://tinyurl.com/68ulm6" rel="nofollow">my personal blog</a> for more details). 3 years ago we had an idea of how bad it was. Then the government 'cleaned it up' and now we have no idea how bad it really is. All we do know is that the defective processes and governance that caused the issue are still there. Next election cycle is next year (for local government and EU Parliament), and we probably have at least 1 referendum during that period as well. But the electoral register issue has faded from the radar (again). The Washington Post has more coverage of the election issues in this article by Mary Pat Flaherty.

Henrik, I’m jealous of your country’s system which seems to work so well. Ireland’s is supposed to work like that as well but is plagued by problems the quality of the information (see my personal blog for more details). 3 years ago we had an idea of how bad it was. Then the government ‘cleaned it up’ and now we have no idea how bad it really is. All we do know is that the defective processes and governance that caused the issue are still there. Next election cycle is next year (for local government and EU Parliament), and we probably have at least 1 referendum during that period as well. But the electoral register issue has faded from the radar (again).

]]> By: Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/comment-page-1/#comment-149 Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:03:34 +0000 http://www.iqtrainwrecks.com/2008/10/24/trusted-electoral-information/#comment-149 Here I am thinking: Why doesn’t this great nation just do what we do in my humble country being Denmark. We have a single public registration system covering all the citizen roles. When we have an election or referendum, they push the button and the ballots are written. That’s it. MDM at work. But I guess this shows that often there are reasons outside the control of any data quality initiative that leads to that you just can’t copy a best practice from another organisation. Also it reminds me that data quality solutions may work very in one country but be almost useless in another country. As globalization moves forward this challenge becomes more and more important. Enterprises tend to standardize world wide on tools and services, shared service centres takes care of data covering many countries and so on. When an employee works with data from another country he often wrongly adapts his local standards to these data and there by challenges the data quality more than seen before. So this is not easy, you have to both think and act global and local. Here I am thinking: Why doesn’t this great nation just do what we do in my humble country being Denmark. We have a single public registration system covering all the citizen roles. When we have an election or referendum, they push the button and the ballots are written. That’s it. MDM at work.

But I guess this shows that often there are reasons outside the control of any data quality initiative that leads to that you just can’t copy a best practice from another organisation.

Also it reminds me that data quality solutions may work very in one country but be almost useless in another country.

As globalization moves forward this challenge becomes more and more important. Enterprises tend to standardize world wide on tools and services, shared service centres takes care of data covering many countries and so on. When an employee works with data from another country he often wrongly adapts his local standards to these data and there by challenges the data quality more than seen before.

So this is not easy, you have to both think and act global and local.

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