Technology in many areas, from artificial intelligence to cybersecurity, is reshaping how elections are conducted. GIS has the power to improve the constituent experience and to inform decision-making. And as GIS capabilities evolve so, too, do its applications for government.
In St. Louis County, Mo., its Board of Elections commissioners, led by Republican Director of Elections Rick Stream and Democratic Director of Elections Eric Fey, started leveraging GIS in 2017. Prior to that, the county used colored pencils on paper maps to visualize concepts like redistricting, according to Stream. But in the state’s next election — a primary Tuesday, Aug. 6 — the county hopes to use the tech to show the public how many people have voted from each district, Fey said.
GIS technology’s ability to clearly show voters’ polling places in their districts and neighborhoods simplifies the voter experience, Stream said; and by answering constituent questions, it simultaneously reduces the workload for the board’s team.
With 28 townships in the county and 20 to 40 precincts per township, GIS plays a significant role in ensuring every voter receives the proper ballot, Stream said. Those who do can then vote at any of the more than 220 polling places in the county. And in the November 2020 election, 30 percent of voters voted in a place other than their assigned location, demonstrating that this vote-from-anywhere option is widely used. Said Stream: “GIS made that possible.”
On Election Day 2024, Esri’s Survey123 application will provide increased accountability and security, Fey said, explaining it helps ensure poll workers and the ballots for which they are responsible are where they should be.
Stream emphasized the value of having skilled GIS staff working with commissioners, as the former are regularly thinking of new applications for the technology. New applications can not only make county election management officials’ jobs easier, but make it easier for voters and candidates alike to navigate the election system.
“For GIS, the sky’s the limit,” Stream said.
The technology has also transformed election management for Orange County, Calif., a local government with about 1.8 million active, registered voters. Just eight years ago, the county managed elections with paper maps — but then it implemented GIS, according to Matt Eimers, GIS supervisor at the Orange County Registrar of Voters. Since then, GIS has helped enhance election security and made the act of voting more accessible.
The county uses Map Central, an interactive mapping platform powered by Esri, to visualize election results. It offers visualization options so users can filter results by precincts, contests or voting methods. This Election Day, the county will field a new feature: Language has been added just this month as another option to filter results.
From a security standpoint, GIS helps track everything from ballots to vote center supplies, making the process more seamless for election management officials. Here, officials plan to add more GIS tracking capabilities, increasing internal visibility into when ballots are coming in.
GIS also increases accessibility for Orange County, letting voters cast their ballots at polling places outside of their districts. For some voters, accessibility of polling places is a big factor in determining where they vote. The county’s team, using Esri’s Survey123, visits polling locations to assess their accessibility, including by examining terrain, measuring the distance from the parking lot to the voting location.
GIS also informs the county’s approach to language support; using it, Eimers said, officials can decide which vote centers should have language assistance for people who do not speak English as a first language.
The technology benefits candidates by providing clear visualizations of their district boundaries. Given the ongoing redistricting process that started in 2021, knowing whom they represent can be particularly useful for hopefuls; and, conversely, can help constituents clearly see who is representing them — and who would like to.
Last, if there’s a particular area of the county in which people are not voting, in disproportionately large numbers, officials can use GIS to understand the demographics and why that might be. This information, too, can inform campaigning and messaging.
Pennsylvania's largest city, Philadelphia, uses GIS for voting, too. This is another large jurisdiction with more than 1 million registered voters across 1,703 precincts and about 800 polling places. In the Philadelphia City Commissioners Office, Dan Warner serves as IT project manager, and Jeff Venziale is director of IT.
The city’s Atlas application helps simplify the voting process; it maps information from polling places to 311 requests and an updated version, focused on voting, is expected later this summer or in early fall. Its areas of improvement include language, and accessibility for people using screen readers. Philadelphia has increasingly been prioritizing the accessibility of its digital products, and voting is no different.
“Elections are the cornerstone of democracy,” Warner said. “And if voters can’t access the information that they need to make informed decisions about voting, we’re failing at our jobs.”
GIS also helps get information about election results out to voters more quickly. During the 2020 presidential election, Warner said, it took two weeks for Philadelphia to get to 98 percent of votes reported. With the new technology in place in the April presidential primary, the city reached that same benchmark in just six hours. And Philadelphia uses call center data to dispatch resources and staff as challenges arise — and to train poll workers, Warner said.
All told, Venziale said, it’s a major shift in how information is shared internally. Then, he said, issues largely arose from institutional knowledge, without data behind them. Now, they’re documented by GIS and patterns can be observed.
“We can actually take real, meaningful action based upon the data that we have,” he said.
