Public availability of the service standards that the electoral management body strives to meet is an important part of maintaining public accountability of the management of voting processes. In an environment with unlimited resources, voting facilities could be staffed so that no voter has to wait to vote, all voters are processed accurately, and there is total control over all aspects of voting integrity. In the real world, however, such resources do not exist. The most highly visible aspect of voting operations is how long voters have to wait at a voting station to cast their vote. There are a number of significant factors that affect voting station traffic.
Important issues relate to staff performance, particularly the time taken to issue voting materials.
There is no generic voting material issue-rate standard that can be applied to all environments. In some environments, polling officials can comfortably achieve voting material issue rates of around sixty voters per hour. At the other end of the spectrum, mobile voting stations dealing with elderly or infirm voters may only be able to deal with five to ten voters per hour. There are also other important factors that will influence the rate at which voters can be processed. What is an acceptable time for voters to have to queue to vote will vary according to general service expectations within a society.