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GIS & Elections

Helping America Vote

About the Quick Start Guides: The EAC's Quick Start Guides are intended to familiarize local election officials with

various topics they will likely encounter in election administration. The guides are a starting point to identify areas of

concern and give officials a broad idea of factors they should consider in approaching a given topic.

GIS & Election Administration

Recent advancements in technology have provided innovative ways to increase the efficiency, accuracy, and

transparency of elections. This guide provides an overview of areas to use Geographical Information Systems (GIS)

in elections. GIS software captures, stores, and displays data in interactive maps. For election administration, it can

combine different datasets such as addresses, streets, buildings, aerial photos, voting precincts, and district

boundaries into a single digital map. Election officials can use this data visualization for a variety of purposes. 

Polling Place Management

Selecting Polling and Drop Box Locations - GIS layers can include population data and

public transportation routes. Election officials can use this information to strategically locate

polling places and drop boxes in areas where they are accessible to voters. Additionally,

election officials can examine aerial photos of parking lots, exterior entrances, and building

size before traveling to locations to confirm they meet accessibility requirements.

Polling Place Look-up Tools - Helping people find their voting location is an important part of

election administration. Election officials can use GIS to create address-specific look-up

tools, similar to other familiar map applications. These tools can be configured with locationfinding features, such as displaying how far the polling place is from a current location and

guidance on reaching the polling place on foot, by vehicle, or with public transportation.

Polling Place Wait Time Management - GIS is also a useful tool for resource management

decisions. Poll workers can collect data about how long it takes to vote at polling places and

upload the information into a GIS database. Election officials can either share the

information in real-time during voting hours or analyze the data post-election to inform

resource allocation or site selections in future elections.

Protect PII

Take steps to protect all

personal identifying

information (PII) when creating

a public GIS database. For

example, the only fields

necessary for polling place

and drop box look-up tools are

residential address and

associated location

information.

Geocoding

Election officials can use interactive GIS maps to examine addresses, precincts, and districts for accuracy.

Geocoding assigns a point on the map for every address in a street file. The address points can be compared

to other information in the GIS workspace to identify discrepancies. This is a useful tool to validate changes

made to precinct and district boundaries in election management systems. For additional information, see the

EAC's Local Election Officials' Guide to Redistricting. 

Public Education

Ballot Look-up Tools - Election officials can help voters learn about contests and issues

before they vote. Because what is on a voter's ballot is determined by where they live, GIS

address look-up tools can help voters find ballot information for all contests in which they are

eligible to vote.

Elected Representative Look-up Tools - Voters do not always know who their representatives

are or how to contact them. A GIS database can help voters find who represents them at

every level of government. Representative look-up tools should be configured based on

addresses and no other personally identifying voter information, so all people can find their

representatives, even when not registered to vote.

Election Night Results - There are many ways to display election results on websites. Posting

election results in PDF reports with cumulative data for an entire jurisdiction is a common

practice. However, it is not always useful or accessible for election analysts, candidates,

voters, and the media. GIS can be used to visually display election results by voting precincts,

or other geographical boundaries, to help present election data. For additional information on

reporting election night results, see the EAC's Best Practices: Election Results Reporting.

Information Access

Remember many voters

cannot access the internet to

use web-based tools.

Information available via the

web should always be

available via other means.

Web-based tools should also

be reviewed for usability and

accessibility.

May 1, 2022 v. 1.0 EAC | Helping America Vote

eac.gov clearinghouse@eac.gov @EACgov @eacgov1 @us.eac