[EL] using polling place finders

Mon Apr 9 06:44:19 PDT 2012

Some jurisdictions would publish poll place locations in local papers the week prior
to an election.  There were a couple of efforts in 2008 to create poll place locators by
non-election administration voter participation projects.  The problem was the information
for the poll location for caucuses and primaries changed for the general election.

Election administrators have a couple of problems, getting locations finalized before
the election then sharing that information with the public.  Locations can be anywhere
in or near the voting precinct some jurisdictions will limit where a polling location can be
placed depending on state and local rules.  In California a polling location could be
in residential garage, while in other states a public building will due or a place of worship.
Colorado begin using vote centers a few years ago, where clusters of polling locations 
were in one location.  No idea how this impacted voters without transportation or the time
to travel to a distant location to cast a vote then get to work or where ever they may need
to be soon after voting.

One solution s getting a fixed location that remains the polling location whether it is
a primary or general election.  

There is also the factor of poll workers that can also impact the number of polling locations.
Nationally 1.2 million people are needed to conduction election day.  The average age of
poll workers are 70 years.  A sufficient number of poll workers is  a silent problem regarding 
election administration and no one has figured out how to solve it.  There have been 
suggestions to use the jury poll system to recruit poll workers, but no one has gotten to that 
point yet.  Some corporations and government agencies offer a couple of free vacation days 
for employees who volunteer.

Most errors on election day occur within the polling place due to inadequate training,
confusion over voting rules or just fatigue.  Poll workers work an average of 17-18 hours
for an election--arriving a couple of hours prior to the poll opening and remaining on duty
an hour or more following poll closures.

A sufficient number of well trained poll workers and reliable information on polling locations 
that voters can access online within 72 hours of the election would be a huge help.  The farm
system for poll worker was the old neighborhood precinct organizations political parties used
before television commercials made grassroots organizations nearly extinct.

Lillie Coney
Associate Director
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) 
Defend Privacy. Support EPIC. 
http://epic.org/epic/support.html
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Washington, D.C.
http://epic.org/
202-483-1140 x 111

On Apr 4, 2012, at 5:05 PM, Maceda, Cliff wrote:

> 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, 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
>  
> 
> On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 11:40 AM, Doug Hess <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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