GreenPoint Global Engineering: Case study

 

 

GIS implementation : Somerset County New Jersey

 

Challenge

 

Somerset County in New Jersey has a population of over 221,499 eligible voters. According to new census data, fluctuations in voter population due either to excessive voter registration acounts or low voter turnout required the adjustment of 76 election district boundaries located in 13 of the
county’s 21 municipalities. Redistricting is a time consuming and labor-intensive activity that needs to be frequently updated with large amounts of data in order to be relevant. Sophisticated Geographic Information Systems (GIS) expand the information and options available to decision-makers when a final redistricting plan must be chosen. Somerset County was in need of a flexible and robust GIS application that could integrate with existing data systems and handle the large amount of data for redistricting needs.

 

Solution

 

GreenPoint worked directly with Somerset county officials to collect, format and repair census data for the 263 election districts. Using ArcMap , ArcCatalog and ArcGIS Geoprocessing tools, GreenPoint correlated spatial features and geocoded every voter. A new geodatabase was developed, and included the new vector data; representing approximately 5,500 US census blocks. The new census blocks were then used to draw election districts with the help of ArcGIS Redistricting Extension. By utilizing this new data, Somerset County was able to input new census and district data, and redraw election boundaries on the basis of specific qualifications. (We did not build a specialized GIS application-ESRI’s ArcGIS Redistricting Extension does this through user input and the data layers for districts and voters)

 

Results

 

The Somerset County Board of Elections has become the first Election Board in New Jersey to use a geocoded voter database. The GreenPoint GIS application (See note above) This allowed Somerset county officials to see the exact location of voters on the map, while updating the geodatabase display if the number of votes increased or decreased within a particular census block or election district. Redistricting plans can be created considerably faster and more efficiently, and the results are much more accurate. Overall, using GIS technology, Somerset County now has a powerful and invaluable tool to utilize in the election district management process.