Configure Election Management

Learn how to configure the Election Management solution to meet specific needs in your organization.

Manage election data

You will assume the role of a mapping technician responsible for maintaining an inventory of electoral districts, voting locations, and voting precincts. The Election Data Management ArcGIS Pro project includes a series of tasks to help guide you through these workflows.

Get started

To get started with Election Data Management, complete the following steps.

1. Sign in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the Election Data Management Desktop Application Template.
2. Open the item page and click Download.
3. Unzip and open the Election Data Management ArcGIS Pro project.
4. On the View tab, in the Windows group, click Catalog Pane.
5. In the Catalog pane, expand the Tasks folder, and double-click the Election Data Management task item.
6. In the Tasks pane, click the Getting Started task group to expand the collection of tasks.

Election Data Management is used to load, create, and edit foundational election data used in Election solutions such as My Elected Representative, Election Polling Places, and Election Manager. The solution uses three foundational datasets:

• Voting Locations
• Voting Precincts
• Electoral Districts

Voting Locations contains facilities where voters can cast ballots and is defined by a point layer. They can be either polling places or voting centers, depending on your community's needs. Voting centers can be modified to allow early voting.

Voting Precincts contains areas that define your community's precincts and is defined by a polygon layer. They are related to voting locations by a unique ID and define the unique polling place where voters in a precinct should cast ballots.

Electoral Districts contains geographies that define an elected office's area of representation and is defined by a polygon layer. For example, a mayor's Electoral District is the municipal boundary. Key attributes are used in My Elected Representative solution.

Before proceeding to subsequent tasks, follow the instructions in the Add election geography layer task to add the ElectionGeogrophy feature layer deployed with the solution.

Load existing election data

Your election agency may have existing polling place, voting center, voting precinct, or electoral district data, which can be loaded into the ElectionGeography feature layer.

Voting Locations are designated as either Polling Places or Voting Centers using the Voting Facility Type field. Both Voting Centers and Polling Places use a standard for operational days and hours in the Voting Centers and Election Polling Places apps included with the Election Outreach solution. To load existing voting location data, designate the type, and format the operation days and hours, follow the instructions in the Polling places and Voting centers tasks.

The polling precinct’s relationship with a polling place is defined by populating the Polling Place ID field with the GlobalID from the corresponding polling place. Establishing this relationship allows the Election Polling Places app and the Election Outreach solution to display the appropriate polling place when a user searches by address or defines a location on the map. Follow the instructions in the Polling precincts task to load existing data and establish the relationship.

Follow the instructions in the Load electoral district to load existing data.

Create new election data

You may need to create new election data if existing data is not available. Follow the instructions in the Create new election data task group to create new voting locations, voting precincts, or electoral districts.

Note:

Map layers must be visible to create new data.

Prepare for next election

Election data changes over time as new voting locations are established, precincts are modified, and election cycles are completed. You must update key fields such as the next election date to maintain election data accuracy and ensure that public facing apps included with the Election Outreach solution display the correct information. Use the Next election date and Early voting data tasks to update key data fields as election cycles are completed. Use the Modify voting locations, Modify precincts, and Modify electoral districts tasks to edit your election data.

Modify election request types

When poll workers create requests using Election Assistant and the Election Requests form, requests are automatically created as assignments in the corresponding Election Manager Workforce project. Using Election Manager, dispatchers can assign requests to field rovers. Additionally, a dispatcher may need to create an assignment directly without a request from a poll worker. Follow the steps below to add additional request types to the Election Manager Workforce project and the Election Requests ArcGIS Survey123 form.

1. Verify that you are signed in to your ArcGIS organization and click the Apps button in the header of the site.
2. From the app launcher, click Workforce to open the app.
3. Under Projects, hover over the Election Manager project, and click Configure.
4. Click the Assignment Types tab.
5. Enter a new assignment type in the text box, and click + Type. Repeat until all new assignments types have been added.
Before populating the new assignment types into the Election Requests form, you will first copy the GlobalID for each new assignment type.
6. In your ArcGIS organization, browse to the Election Manager feature layer.
7. Open the item page and click Open in Map Viewer.
8. On the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Tables.
9. Click Assignment Types layer.
10. Click Tools in the table header and check the GlobalID field to show (unhide) in the table. Click Done to close the pop-up window.
11. Expand the GlobalID field and copy each new assignment type's ID.
12. Paste the copied GlobaIID or GlobalIDs into Microsoft Notepad or another text editor for reference.

Update Election Requests form

Update the Election Requests with each new assignment type.

1. Install ArcGIS Survey123 Connect.
2. Start ArcGIS Survey123 Connect and sign in to your ArcGIS organization.
3. Click Election Requests to download the survey.
4. In the Download window, click Download and click OK.
5. Click Election Requests to open the survey.
6. On the side toolbar, click the XLSForm button.
7. In the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, click the choices tab.

   This tab comprises all the selectable options for survey questions.

8. In the list_name column type ASSIGN_TYPE.
9. In the name column, copy and paste the GlobalID, before and after the GlobalID add curly braces (for example, {5b3e80df-aec7-4739-929f-8cb70cdbd62c}).
10. In the label column, type the assignment type.
11. Repeat steps 8 through 10 for each new assignment type.
12. Save and close the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and preview your changes in ArcGIS Survey123 Connect.
13. In ArcGIS Survey123 Connect, click Publish on the side toolbar to publish your changes.
14. Click Publish survey to publish your changes and click OK.

Update voter satisfaction survey

The Voter Satisfaction Survey allows you to solicit feedback from voters to help you gauge voter sentiment during an ongoing election. In some cases, you may want to add or remove questions from the survey.

1. Start ArcGIS Survey123 Connect and sign in to your ArcGIS organization.
2. Click Voter Satisfaction Survey to download the survey.
3. In the Download window, click Download and click OK.
4. Click Voter Satisfaction Survey again to open the survey.
5. In the XLSForm Modified window, click Yes.
6. On the side toolbar, click Open XLSForm Spreadsheet.
7. In the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, click the choices tab.

   This tab comprises all the selectable options for survey questions.

8. Click the survey tab.

   This tab comprises all the questions in the survey.

9. Revise the survey to reflect your needs.
10. Save and close the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and preview your changes in Survey123 Connect.
11. In Survey123 Connect, click Publish on the side toolbar.
12. Click Publish survey to publish your changes and click OK.

Create Election Assistant direct URLs

Election Assistant is accessed through a URL in a web browser. To report a wait time or request assistance, election workers then use either the map or list to select their assigned polling place or voting center. Organizations that have many voting locations may want to provide poll workers a direct URL to the Election Assistant app. You can use a web browser URL parameter to help poll workers by opening the Election Assistant app with the proper voting location already selected.

By adding a facilityid parameter to the app URL, Election Assistant selects the location without user interaction. Ensure each voting location has a unique identifier in the facilityid field in the ElectionGeography feature layer. For example, by adding &facilityid=89 to the app URL, Election Assistant selects facility ID number 89. The full URL is similar to this:

https://myorganization.maps.arcgis.com/apps/CrowdsourcePolling/index.html?appid=449f9c890c584c9395a393ad5a541bc6&facilityid=89