FSASE Summer 2014

ICW and affiliate KET, Corp. were present at the 41st Annual Summer Conference hosted by the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections (FSASE). Bright banners, insightful speakers, and excellent weather all converged to make an excellent event in Destin hosted by the Walton County SOE, Bobby Beasley.

A GeoElections user meeting was conducted during which users expressed the need to identify discrete and ranged addresses as commercial. Before the end of the conference KET, Corp. and VR Systems staff devised a methodology to add this feature enhancement passing this classification to Voter Focus for inclusion in the street index. Versions of GeoElections and Voter Focus are now in beta testing with successful results expected in September. This enhancement will be rolled out in September with the release of GeoAuthor 2.5 and concurrently GeoElections 7.4.

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A New GeoElections County

What Florida county is on the Gulf, has an old-fashioned fishing village now a tourist center with several regionally famous seafood restaurants and annually holds a Spring Sidewalk Art Festival and a Fall Seafood Festival, each attracting thousands of visitors to the area? This county has eight towns/cities and approximately 26,000 voters.

The correct answer is Levy County. “GeoElections and GeoAuthor are designed to interface perfectly with my voter registration system, Voter Focus”, Tammy Jones, SOE.

“It was so fortunate our office staff met with the GeoElections crowd at the FSASE conference. We have had frustrating results working with another mapping product. Finally, we have a solution that works.” Tammy Jones was elected to the office in November of 2012 and took the oath in 2013.

Tammy had worked in the office for several years prior, but they did not have the benefit of GIS. The map was completed in GeoElections; streets, jurisdictions and voters geocoded. A quick analysis revealed numerous voters were out of precinct. With the ease of interoperability between GeoElections and Voter Focus and the assistance of staff from her respective vendors, the voters were assigned to the correct precincts. While all county offices are voted county wide, Tammy took the view, “If we can make the precinct assignments correctly, why wouldn’t we do exactly that?”

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13th Annual GeoElections Conference

December 3rd, 4th, and 5th, 2014 at the Embassy Suites Hotel located at the University of South Florida workshops and presentations on topics using GeoElections.

The GeoElections Conference presents a unique opportunity for elections officials. We focus upon the successful use of GIS in the elections process dictated by the best practices in elections administration. For more information about the GeoElections Conference visit: www.icwmaps.com and Events>Conferences to obtain a Registration Form and Topic Survey.

See you in December!

Dinner and a Movie at Florida's only IMAX Dome Theater.

Best Elections Practices!

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New To GeoAuthor®

Recent work conducted with the US Bureau of the Census has led ICW to add two new buttons to dialog boxes as illustrated in Change Attributes.

The CBT (computer based training) button activates a video window with instructions on the use of the dialog box in context with a map.

The Help button will launch a browser with illustrations and instructions.

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Court Orders Congressional Districts 5 and 10 Unconstitutional

In 2010 voters passed the “Fair Districts” amendment that says legislators cannot draw districts to favor incumbents or a political party. New lines were submitted by the Florida Legislature

on Friday, 08/15/2014. The top map illustrates in color the lines of 27 Congressional districts adopted in 2012 along with 67 FL counties. The second map illustrates the newly proposed lines that alter Districts 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 17. If adopted these lines will affect 8 FL counties VR databases: Putnam, Volusia, Seminole, Orange, Osceola, Polk, Lake and Marion; and election schedules in 25 FL counties. Members of FSASE and the Secretary of State reported to Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis the earliest they could conduct a special election would be March 17th and a general on May 26th of 2015 to follow all election laws.

Spokesmen from both the League of Women Voters and Common Cause Florida both of whom sued to overturn the 2012 map urged Judge Lewis to dismiss the latest submission and draw a new congressional plan himself.

After 3 hours of hearings on August 20, Judge Lewis indicated he is weighing the merits of accepting the new plan or whether to delay the elections in districts affected by the rewrite. The judge said he would rule on the issue soon.

Late Friday, 08/22/2014, Judge Lewis ruled the current districts may remain in place for two more years. The new districts don’t have to take effect until 2016.

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