21 Guiding Good Governance “Situations can develop rapidly on Election Day and GIS gives us the ability to visualize what is happening. With these tools in place, election days seem somewhat less fraught than they used to be when we could only guess at what was happening in the field.” — Rick Stream, Republican director of elections, Saint Louis County, Missouri Looking Forward: Anticipating and Innovating As election results come in, they’re displayed on maps on the board of elections website. Using data, maps, and mobile tools throughout the election cycle grants a high level of transparency and authenticity to the county’s processes. When Fey needs to answer a question, he has authoritative data to point to. This information matters when addressing allegations of foreign disinformation campaigns, voter fraud, or voting St. Louis County Election Board staff can run reports to display election results for each office, and residents can click to follow the contests of interest to them. machine security. “New folks are coming into election administration with IT competencies. They want to emphasize outward-facing transparency and make processes more accessible to the public—GIS is a great tool for that,” Fey said. After each election, staff members aggregate and analyze all the collected data and Fey looks for potential process improvements. If he notices more mobile workers were dispatched to certain areas, he takes note. If a certain polling place is popular, he can allocate additional resources to that location for the next election. Fey’s office compiles a biennial report filled with maps after every general election. Every elected official receives a physical copy. The reports help officials visualize the regions where they did and didn’t receive support. The maps speak to the large amount of data the board of elections collects and synthesizes. In the future, Fey and his team want to take historical election data and display it on interactive maps for constituents, researchers, and journalists to explore. He’s also hoping to enhance real-time data collection on Election Day to include interactive maps with live results, down to the precinct level. They are ahead of the curve. According to the National States Geographic Information Council, the majority of states are in the early stages of integrating GIS into their election processes. Fey noted that, by focusing on hiring GIS personnel and investing in the tools they need, the board of elections created a culture where people use location data to solve problems and innovate. “It’s these little improvements,” Fey said. “Every little piece builds on something else.”
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjA2NTE0Mw==