20 Optimizing Election Preparation In 2023, new laws in Missouri made it easier for people to vote. Voters can now visit any polling center—instead of an assigned location—or vote as absentees. The Polling Place Lookup tool helps voters find their nearest polling center. For those choosing to vote as absentees, the Absentee Voting Lookup tool highlights satellite sites and calculates driving times to locations where voters can drop off their ballots. Voters can also use the Saint Louis County Sample Ballot Lookup tool to explore the candidates and initiatives specific to where they live. Location technology helps the board of elections prepare for these changes. Fey’s team used information from previous elections to determine where to place new sites for early voting. “Data from the November 2022 election showed us where people were voting. We could also see that there were some dead zones where we didn’t have a polling center. Because there wasn’t one, those people just didn’t vote early, they waited until Election Day—that was a big learning moment for us,” he said. St. Louis County Board of Elections provides several map lookup applications, including this Polling Place Lookup app. On Election Day, the app shows line counts and estimated waiting times at each polling place. The board of elections is also responsible for distributing voting equipment to nearly 300 polling centers across the county. Prior to implementing GIS technology, warehouse employees would sit down with paper maps and draw out delivery routes. Now, workers optimize delivery routes to find the quickest routes considering traffic conditions and the shortest to minimize travel distance. The absentee department coordinates voting for residents of nursing and retirement homes, which includes delivering ballots to nearly 100 facilities. “The team [had previously] relied on employees with years of knowledge about the process and it was always confusing,” Fey said. “A few years ago, they went to the GIS analysts and asked for help. That’s when I realized our thinking had really changed. Now we have a dashboard to track and manage the nursing home visits we make. It’s made the job so much easier.” Setting Expectations On Election Day, GIS apps keep county officials and constituents informed in real time. Throughout the day, voters can use the Polling Place Lookup tool to monitor wait times at each location. A volunteer counts the voters in line and logs the number in ArcGIS Survey123, which then populates on the web map. “On Election Day in 2020, we had 365,000 hits to the line tracker app on our website. That’s about as many people who voted on Election Day in Saint Louis County, so it was very popular,” Fey said. The poll books voters use to sign in are connected to Fey’s office and automatically populate a map that shows where and when people are voting. Fey and his team monitor polling place wait times to anticipate problems. If a device malfunctions or another error occurs, Fey can locate a mobile team member closest to the issue and dispatch them to troubleshoot.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjA2NTE0Mw==