St. Louis launches website to track waiting times at the polling station

Voters in St. Louis can now track wait times at the polls before casting their vote on Election Day using a website launched Monday.

During early voting and on November 5, the map will show real-time line counts at polling places.

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 allow for an easier voting experience.

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

St. Louis County launched its widely used line tracker card in 2020, and since then Borgmeyer has been focused on bringing the tool to the city and “catching up with the county.”

Eric Fey, St. Louis County’s Democratic Elections Director, said the real-time map benefits voters and the Board of Elections.

“We have people who will refresh that thing for hours and wait until the lines get short enough for where they want to go to a certain location,” Fey said.

Before using the line tracker, Fey said the county had to rely on workers at each polling place to call election officials about long lines or problems printing ballots.

“Or worse, what we don’t like is, you know, constituents calling and saying, ‘Hey, there’s a problem here.’ You should address this.’ Of course we will, but we prefer to try to figure those things out before the voters have to start complaining to us,” Fey said.

On Election Day, Fey said officials will monitor the map, which is regularly updated by poll workers at each location, to quickly identify problems and send one of nearly 100 troubleshooters to fix it.

Given the increased national control of elections and increased intimidation of election officials in recent years, Fey said newer mapping technology and better outreach efforts like tours of election offices can help restore confidence in the system.

Brian Munoz

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St. Louis Public Radio

Both the city and county boards of elections work with Esri, a company that provides geographic information systems, to run the map service. The technology is used to create, analyze and map data such as polling stations and election results.

Many election officials in the United States use GIS technology to accurately redraw districts, verify voter registrations, and ensure voters receive the correct ballots. More election boards are expected to adopt the mapping technology in the next three years, according to one 2022 report from the National States Geographic Information Council.

While geospatial software remains expensive and highly specialized, its use is now more widespread because people look 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 draw meaning from them,” Kastor said.

Kastor, who first used computer mapping technology in 1990 in his work with 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.

“Now we have a whole generation of people who have grown up thinking geospatially. They’ve seen Google Maps. They’ve seen Google Earth. They’re using mapping devices on their phones,” Kastor said.

The county board of elections employs three GIS specialists; the city’s election commissioners rely on help from GIS experts working under the city’s Survey and Urban Design Bureau.

Borgmeyer said he hopes to use more GIS technology throughout the election process, including releasing maps showing voter turnout numbers and election results. St. Louis currently only publishes election results in a tabular format.