[EL] using polling place finders

[Maceda, Cliff]

Doug,

It's been a few years since I worked on sample precinct/exit poll coverage, but I dealt with some of the problems you cite in finding polling places through state search engines.  I do recall that there were states that would supply complete lists of poll sites upon request (MN and RI come most readily to mind, but there are probably many more now, certainly any state with a search function on their site has a statewide list).  I would start by contacting states to see if they can provide databases.

Cliff Maceda

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Doug Spencer
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2012 4:54 PM
To: Doug Hess
Cc: Election Law
Subject: Re: [EL] using polling place finders

Doug,

The registrars of voters in California keep a spreadsheet of all polling place addresses in their county. In the past, they have been very willing to share that list with me, even though I don't live in the county. Perhaps registrars in other states are similar. You would have to target individual counties, though I presume you have a discrete list of university campuses you are targeting, so that shouldn't be too difficult. There are several free services that will geocode large lists of addresses in one batch (here's Google<http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/spreadsheetsgeocoder/geocodespreadsheet.htm>, for example) which you can then plot and analyze.

I hope that's helpful,
Doug

-----
Douglas M. Spencer
Jurisprudence and Social Policy Ph.D. Program
University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
Phone: (415) 335-9698
E-mail: dspencer at berkeley.edu<mailto:dspencer at berkeley.edu>

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 11:40 AM, Doug Hess <douglasrhess at gmail.com<mailto:douglasrhess at gmail.com>> wrote:

Hi. My students are researching distances between dorms and polling places. However, only a few states seem to have polling place finders (using either the government or databases compiled at nonprofit websites) that work for general addresses. By that I mean that many states want you to enter your name or other information to see where a certain person lives and where their polling place is. Obviously this restricts the states where we can examine distances between two points, as we can get dorm addresses (point A) but not the associated polling place (point B).

Oddly, even on polling place locator websites like WI (link: https://vpa.wi.gov/AddressSearchScreen.aspx) if you type in the address for a huge dormitory, you get nothing. Surely somebody is registered at a dorm address of over a 1,000 students, and used their dorm street address. No?

In any event, if people know of other mapping tools or datasets of polling places that allow for research like this, let me know. So far the majority of states require a log in or a name or that your address produce a registration file first. (Some larger counties have their own systems, but I haven't explored that yet.

Doug Hess

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