Friday, November 6. 2009

Eight Year Old Voter Assignment Error to be Explored Using GIS

The error, found only this week, seems to date back 2001, when precincts in Scott County, Iowa were drawn by hand. This was apparently the first time a voter was turned away from the expected voting location to another. 39 individuals were mis-assigned. Only one of them voted in the recent election, which may explain why it took this long for the error to pop up.

Now, the plan is to review the rest of county, to be sure there are no other errors. The good news? The process can be automated:

Voter registration details from the auditor's office will be compared with computerized address and precinct mapping from the county's geographic information system, or GIS, to determine if any other areas were assigned improperly. The computerized analysis is expected to take about two weeks.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Oops at 06:48 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |