St. Louis launches website to track wait times at polling places

Voters in St. Louis can now track wait times at polling stations before casting their ballot on Election Day through a website launched Monday.

During early voting and on November 5th, the map shows the number of polling places in real time.

The interactive map is part of an effort to modernize election operations, said Ben Borgmeyer, the city's Democratic elections director. Borgmeyer said he doesn't expect the tool to lead to higher voter turnout, but that it will provide an easier voting experience.

“If (we) can see a place that has a line around the block, the idea would be to put more resources there to try to manage it better,” Borgmeyer said.

St. Louis County launched its widespread Line tracker card In 2020, Borgmeyer focused on bringing the tool to the city and “catching up with the county.”

St. Louis County Democratic Elections Director Eric Fey said the real-time map benefits voters and the board of elections.

“We have people refreshing the thing for hours and waiting until the lines are short enough to get to where they want to go to a specific location,” Fey said.

Before the queue tracker was deployed, Fey said the county relied on employees at each polling location to call election officials about long lines or problems printing ballots.

“Or worse, what we don't like is voters calling and saying, 'Hey, there's a problem here.' You should take care of it.' Of course we will, but we'd rather try to figure these things out before voters have to start complaining to us,” Fey said.

On Election Day, Fey said officials will monitor the map, which is updated regularly by poll workers at each location, to quickly identify problems and dispatch one of nearly 100 problem solvers to resolve them.

Given the tightened national control of elections and the increase Intimidation of election officials In recent years, Fey said newer mapping technologies and better outreach efforts such as tours of election offices can help restore trust in the system.

Brian Munoz

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St. Louis Public Radio

Both city and county election departments work with Esri, a company that provides geographic information systems for the mapping service. The technology is used to create, analyze and map data such as polling locations and election results.

Many U.S. election officials use GIS technology to accurately redraw precincts, verify voter registrations, and ensure voters receive the correct ballots. According to a, more electoral boards are expected to adopt the mapping technology in the next three years Report 2022 from the National States Geographic Information Council.

Although geospatial software remains expensive and highly specialized, its use is now more widespread as people turn to maps to better understand politics and the world around them, said Peter Kastor, a professor of history at Washington University in St. Louis

“Most people are not data scientists. They don’t know how to look at a column of numbers and make sense of it,” Kastor said.

Kastor, who first used computer mapping technology in 1990 while working for a division of the U.S. Department of Justice that enforces the Voting Rights Act, said many more people are now familiar with location-based technology.

“We now have a whole generation of people who grew up with geodata. You've seen Google Maps. You've seen Google Earth. They use mapping devices on their phones,” Kastor said.

The county election board employs three GIS specialists; The city's Board of Election Commissioners relies on the help of GIS experts who report to the city's Panning and Urban Design Agency.

Borgmeyer said he hopes to use more GIS technology during the election process, including publishing maps showing voter turnout and election results. St. Louis currently only publishes election results in tabular form.