Election day coverage
The coverage plan that survives 6am
Election day on the seeded DC campaign meant 74 vote centers opening at 6am, three shift blocks each, staffed from a 268-person pool that had just worked a 7-day early-voting window. Every scheduling debt the campaign carried came due in one morning. This page is the plan for that morning.
Three rules hold the day together
Rule one: overstaff the morning at 120 percent
The 6am shift has the highest no-show rate of the cycle and the least recovery time. A hole at 6am stays open through the morning rush, which is when turnout peaks in most downballot races. Schedule the opening block at 120 percent of need and let the surplus release to gaps as the real attendance picture forms. In the grid this is one extra assignment per opening shift, planned in October instead of improvised at dawn.
Rule two: hold a ward-based reserve
Five to ten proven-reliable volunteers per region, deliberately unassigned, released by the gap panel as holes appear. The reserve only works if reliability is real data, which is why attendance logging at every canvass and phone bank since August matters. The fill panel ranks the reserve by who has covered each center before, so the volunteer sent to Coolidge High School at 7am has stood at that table and needs no orientation.
Rule three: run the night-before check from the report
Every gap visible at 9pm on Monday is fillable with a text and a favor. The same gap at 6am on Tuesday is a hole in the program. The Monday evening gap report lists every uncovered shift with ranked fill candidates attached, and working through it takes an hour. This report is the reason the product exists.
The day itself runs on the gap panel
From 6am the job is triage: attendance reality versus the plan. Site captains text who showed, an organizer marks the no-shows, and the gap panel re-ranks in place, live across every seat. The 7am email lands with the opening picture: coverage by ward, open gaps ranked, and yesterday's early-voting no-shows already flagged as risks. From there the reserve does its work, and the grid stays the single answer to the only question that matters all day: are we covered right now, everywhere?
The campaigns that get this day right did not get lucky in November. They logged attendance in September, built the reserve in October, and read the gap report Monday night. All three habits start with putting the program on the grid before the season peaks.