Voter Count Tool

[nathankota]

Background

@mheagin has been approached by two Davis County representatives (Jeff Barker and Amber Miller, deputy county clerk) and Mark Mitchell in the Lt. Gov's Office about an ArcMap tool that they recall using, where a polygon could be drawn around address points, and the number of voters within the area was returned. Apparently Barry wrote the tool years ago.

Statement of Need

Given the post-census (and ongoing) redistricting efforts encountered by county governments, a GIS tool or application is desirable for users to digitize a polygon to contain address points and obtain a total count of voters within the area.

Additional Information (please feel free to add more)

• Vista address points apparently contain an attribute for number of voters per household/address, so this must have been the data that was queried by the former GIS tool(?).

[stdavis]

What do they want to do with the polygon? I would guess copy it to a precinct layer? Or maybe it's just exploratory. The answer to this question might help determine if this should be a web app or Pro addin.

[nathankota]

@mheagin this is a good question for Jeff and Amber

[steveoh]

I am liking the idea of a web application. I think it could end up being useful for more purposes than intended?

We could create a service to generate shapefiles on demand.
We could create the following methods to get head count numbers

• census blocks
• parcels
• freeform polygons

[mheagin]

sent some question to them this morning waiting to hear back

[mheagin]

Precincts are usually based on Census Blocks, or parcels. I would think the drawn polygons would be rough outlines of those area and not a final area representation. There are requirements for the number of voters in an area and that is what they are looking for.

[mheagin]

First response from Jeff Baker on the old tool:

--Polygons. The precincts will begin based on a series of what I call "hard boundaries". These are the polys created by intersecting the soon-to-be Congressional, Senate, House, School Board boundaries. This will carry forward the attributes of each district into the precincts. I'm anticipating making a copy of these hard boundary polys and then slicing and dicing each of them into the precincts. However, you raise a good point about creating temporary/exploratory polys and then saving them as a feature. That might be a very good approach.

--Who to Count. Registered voters--yes. Population--irrelevant. The old tool had an option to download the voters per county.

--Min-Max Counts. Minimum count=0 (yes, zero--legally allowed), maximum registered voters per precinct is 1,250.

--Boundaries. The precinct boundaries are made up of the hard boundaries (above), local roads, city limits, parcels, etc. Future annexations also come into play as they occur. Census blocks/data are not a factor in creating/managing precincts.

--Software. We are also in the ArcMap/ArcPro transition, but probably more on the Pro side now. Not sure about other counties, however. An online app or widget for WebApp Builder might be helpful also.

--Process. We do check counts continually as boundaries are drawn and adjusted. When we move a precinct boundary, the count will go up in one precinct and down in an adjacent precinct. It's a continual "rob Peter to pay Paul" approach.

[nathankota]

Tool/app inputs:

• Digitize polygon
• Upload polygon(s) - (zipped shp file or fgdb if an app?)
• ...

Outputs:

• Feature class or just a table with:
  • congressional district
  • senate
  • house
  • school board
• number of voters (from Elections data)
  • flag/indicator if number voters below a minimum, or above a maximum
• Flag/indicators if a voter is in multiple precints

[mheagin]

We have had more inquiries from counties (Tooele, Cache, Sanpete) and the redistricting commission. This was an Addin tool for ArcMap that AGRC provided to the Lt Gov. Office back in 2010-11 to help the counties with redrawing their precincts during Redistricting. The population data will be provided Sept 30 from Census. After that things will go into high gear, everyone has until the end of the year to be done. Barry vaguely remembers working on it with Kevin Higgs. As time get closer more counties are trying to get a jump on things and be ready for push, so they would like to have something they can start looking at now if possible.

[nathankota]

I'm trying to understand what data source (and who manages it) will provide the voter count information. If I understand correctly, the Elections Office (VISTA?) address data is what was used in the previous tool to determine number of voters, as it had/has a field for that (# voters/household). Will the Census data provide that information, and be incorporated into VISTA data by the Elections Office staff?

[gregbunce]

@mheagin do you remember who inquired about this tool from the independent redistricting commission? I'll reach out to them and ask about our access to the autoBound program.

[gregbunce]

Does it makes more sense to allow the user to select 2020 census blocks, and then report the total number of voters in those selected blocks?
I feel like the polygon part might add complexity that is not needed.

If so, a simple ArcGIS online map might solve this. I'm happy to look into the details and web app part if they want to go that route.

[stdavis]

Precinct boundaries don't correlate with census blocks 100% of the time, do they?

[gregbunce]

@mheagin or @stdavis - do we have access to voter points or x,y coords? I'm guessing that info is in the vista db. what table should I look at?

I could summarize the points based on 2020 census blocks and that could be the basis of the web app. the user could then select blocks and get the voter count of selected blocks.

[nathankota]

I think the idea is to adjust potential district boundaries and see how that affects the number of voters within the boundary, so maybe the spatial query needs to be against the actual voter points.

[gregbunce]

so, the app probably needs to allow the user to select an existing district to work with (in doing so, that would select all the 2020 blocks that are within that district), then they can select or de-select 2020 blocks to see how those adjustments change the voter totals.

[stdavis]

We had access to voter x/y's at one time. I'm sure that we could get it again if needed.

[gregbunce]

from my understanding, the newly established independent redistricting commission will be using autoBound redistricting software. I would guess that that product offers similar out-of-the-box functionality.

[nathankota]

Amber (Esri) said she knows the legislative redistricting council purchased the autoBound software in addition to having the Esri solution, but she wasn't sure if the independent committee also purchased the Citygate software, and thought the Esri stuff might have been all they wanted/needed. Would be worth asking and knowing who has what. Do you have contacts on both committees/councils?

[mheagin]

is that autoBound something we can get our hands on? Or do we need it?

…

On Wed, Jul 14, 2021 at 11:53 AM Greg Bunce ***@***.***> wrote: from my understanding, the newly established independent redistricting commission will be using autoBound <http://www.citygategis.com/products/autobound>redistricting software. I would guess that that product offers similar out-of-the-box functionality. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACRO3G6UOBVBEDXRZAUTTHDTXXFILANCNFSM43MR5W7Q> .

-- Mike Heagin UGRC Utah Geospatial Resource Center (formerly AGRC) gis.utah.gov 385-401-9667

[gregbunce]

I'm not sure, but I feel like it's only licensed to the IRC. Would you like me to ask?

[gregbunce]

we could offer assistance to them in getting it set up if they haven't already.

[mheagin]

If they are going to be asking questions about the software, maybe since I have no idea what it is or does?

…

On Wed, Jul 14, 2021 at 12:04 PM Greg Bunce ***@***.***> wrote: we could offer assistance to them in getting it set up if they haven't already. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACRO3G26JELGXGOFWT5ZOJTTXXGSDANCNFSM43MR5W7Q> .

-- Mike Heagin UGRC Utah Geospatial Resource Center (formerly AGRC) gis.utah.gov 385-401-9667

[mheagin]

Precinct boundaries are suppose to "reflect" census blocks. They can encompass many blocks or a few. The precincts have to follow a know 'line', 'edge' like blocks, sections or a physical line (river, road). So in a lot of cased they won't follow just the blocks.

[steveoh]

if you are replying to someone please write your reply under their comment otherwise this is a new thread and confusing to track.

[gregbunce]

I feel like we're still safe to use blocks to get the voter counts as long as their centroid is within the district they're working with. agree, disagree, thoughts?

…

On Thu, Jul 15, 2021 at 10:00 AM Mike Heagin ***@***.***> wrote: Precinct boundaries are suppose to "reflect" census blocks. They can encompass many blocks or a few. The precincts have to follow a know 'line', 'edge' like blocks, sections or a physical line (river, road). So in a lot of cased they won't follow just the blocks. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEA7QTD3WYEOFRFP3GTHW4DTX4A3BANCNFSM43MR5W7Q> .

-- Greg Bunce Utah Geospatial Resource Center <http://gis.utah.gov/> 801.349.0039

[mheagin]

Looking at the data, it should be safe. Rural areas might be a little rougher. A good question for Mark. I am not 100 % sure what they are looking for to build these, what kind of limits they have.

[mheagin]

Gordon Haight ***@***.***), he is the chair. We were talking about what tool they could look at when they had a analyst that was trying to get up to speed with the GIS. Jeff Barker is part of that commission too, I think he might have brought it up. They do have a web site now https://uirc.utah.gov/ it does have a mapping component I noticed, but didn't play with yet.

…

On Thu, Jul 15, 2021 at 10:15 AM Greg Bunce ***@***.***> wrote: @mheagin <https://github.com/mheagin> do you remember who inquired about this tool from the independent redistricting commission? I'll reach out to them and ask about our access to the autoBound program. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACRO3GYHK3XIQ2OATKI32FLTX4CTVANCNFSM43MR5W7Q> .

-- Mike Heagin UGRC Utah Geospatial Resource Center (formerly AGRC) gis.utah.gov 385-401-9667

[gregbunce]

note: mike's response here is related to a question I asked in an above comment

[gregbunce]

Another thought is, ArcGIS Pro already has this functionality built-in. I believe the IRC has 5 Pro licenses.

I will reach to Gordon and Jeff to see where they are at with this need and mention the functionality in Pro.

[nathankota]

The Esri solution which, supposedly, both commission/committee have access to says it can

Create custom reports using any available variable that matters to your organization and your constituents.

But not sure what that means without seeing what it can do.

[gregbunce]

Note:
UGRC, IRC, and a few folks from Davis County are meeting on 7/21/2021 at 1pm to better understand the need and to gather more information for this tool.

If you haven't seen an invite and would like to attend the meeting, let me know and I'll get you included.

[mheagin]

I have added some notes from the meeting Greg referred to, any one at the meeting feel free to add to or edit those notes.
You can find them here - Tool for County Clerk

[gregbunce]

FYI: I was able to get a table of addresses showing the total number of active voters at each address. I dropped it in the Google Drive.

[steveoh]

Could this tool be used for gerrymandering?

[nathankota]

Isn't that how we define voting precincts in the first place here in Utah? :)
Joking aside, I think the tool is neutral in its functionality with the main goal being to quickly calculate the number of voters within exploratory boundaries. The human intention of its use could be anywhere on the spectrum of beneficial - benign - nefarious.

[nathankota]

Edit: I think the more correct answer is that the voting districts will be set by the legislature with input from the independent commission first, then this tool will be used by county-level staff to define the voting precincts within those districts.

[gregbunce]

i loaded the voter-counts-by-residence point layer into agol (for now, ugrc org only access). something seems off to me. check out condos and multiunit buildings. the voter counts seems super low.
https://utah.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?layers=d1eaf50dea1b4e1b815475973541a121

my next step is to check with the lt gov's office to see if we can open this data up publicly or if it needs to be locked down and each county has to gain access via us.

[gregbunce]

disregard my concern that something seems off (see above). Nathan brought to my attention the point locations are stacked on top of each other (thanks, kota!). I no longer think something is off.

also, we heard back from the lt gov's office and they think it's best if the data is locked down to specific vetted users (ie: county election personnel).