State Election District Targeting Procedure

Citizens Oversight (2016-08-08) Ray Lutz

This Page: https://copswiki.org/Common/StateElectionDistrictTargetingProcedure
More Info: Election Integrity, Election Team, Snapshot Protocol, Snapshot Protocol

State Election District Targeting Procedure

This procedure determines election district targets and evaluates past audit compliance.

In the following procedure, replace your state abbreviation where you see 'ST'. This procedure generates a data file which provides the top targets for our oversight work. Generally, by the Pareto Principle (the 80/20 rule), the most populous 20% of the election districts will comprise 80% of the voters. Also, it captures recent election audit reports. Other districts should only be processed if we have someone who really wants to do the work in that district.

State Priorities

Before we dip into the districts, we prioritize by number of registered voters in each state. States do not very well follow the 80/20 rule, it is more like 50/20 or 80/40 rule.

Rank	Portion of Voters	State List (in order from highest electorate
Top 12 (24%)	50%	CALIFORNIA, TEXAS, FLORIDA, NEW YORK, PENNSYLVANIA, ILLINOIS, OHIO, MICHIGAN, NORTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA, VIRGINIA, NEW JERSEY
Top 24 States (48%)	80%	WASHINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS, MISSOURI, TENNESSEE, INDIANA, WISCONSIN, MARYLAND, MINNESOTA, ARIZONA, COLORADO, SOUTH CAROLINA, LOUISIANA

County Priorities

We reviewed the entire list of election districts in the nation. The top 175 of the some 8000 districts (about 2.1%) account for 50% of the voters in the nation. The following map shows the locations of the top 175 counties. We will primarily be focusing on the top 175 counties in the country rather than prioritizing on a state-by-state basis. After we get the lions share of those counties covered, we may want to extend to the tp 300 counties (60% of the vote) or the top 500 counties (70% of the vote). I daresay getting 70% coverage would be quite a success story. But let's concentrate on the first 175 counties to cover 50% of the electorate.

Map showing the top 175 counties (50% of voters) in the nation.: High-res

Please note:

• Some states, like Nevada, are not in the top states list, but Clark County (Las Vegas) is a very significant county. So in addition to looking at this state-by-state, we can look at these few important counties as well.
• East Coast counties are very small. Thus although NYC falls below Los Angeles, it is broken up into multiple counties and as a whole rates much higher.
• Chicago is also very dense and Chicago City is broken out as a separate district.
• Small states like NJ will have almost all counties of interest due to their extreme density.
• WI has 3589 really small districts with an average of about 1000 voters, and none rise to the level on national level. This will take more investigation to figure out how to effectively provide oversight. These are more like "precincts" in other states.
• Alaska is one big single election district. They do not break it down by county.
• North Dakota does not register voters so they are not included. Will have to analyze using population.

Here is a snippet of the national ranking table showing the first 22 entries:

• NatonalRegVotersByCounty.xlsx: County targets sorted by county (Entire File)

Initial 175 County targets

Here are the top 175 counties we are targeting! (read across then down for rank).

Jurisdiction	Primary City	State	Jurisdiction	Primary City	State	Jurisdiction	Primary City	State	Jurisdiction	Primary City	State
LOS ANGELES COUNTY	Los Angeles	CA	MARICOPA COUNTY	Phoenix	AZ	HARRIS COUNTY	Houston	TX	Chicago city	Chicago	IL
Cook County	Chicago	IL	SAN DIEGO COUNTY	San Diego	CA	ORANGE COUNTY	Anaheim	CA	Kings County	Booklyn	NY
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY	Miami	FL	WAYNE COUNTY	Detroit	MI	DALLAS COUNTY	Dallas	TX	BROWARD COUNTY	Fortlauderdale	FL
KING COUNTY	Seattle	WA	Queens County	Queens	NY	New York County	Manhattan	NY	CLARK COUNTY	Las Vegas	NV
TARRANT COUNTY	Fort Worth	TX	PHILADELPHIA COUNTY	Philadelphia	PA	Suffolk County	Long Island	NY	Nassau County	Long Island	NY
BEXAR COUNTY	San Antonio	TX	OAKLAND COUNTY	Near Detroit	MI	PALM BEACH COUNTY	West Palm Beach	FL	RIVERSIDE COUNTY	Riverside	CA
CUYAHOGA	Cleveland	OH	ALLEGHENY COUNTY	Pittsburgh	PA	SACRAMENTO COUNTY	Sacramento	CA	SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY	San Bernardino	CA
ALAMEDA COUNTY	Oakland	CA	SANTA CLARA COUNTY	San Jose	CA	FRANKLIN	Columbus	OH	HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY	Tampa	FL
ORANGE COUNTY	Orlando	FL	ST. LOUIS COUNTY	St. Louis	MO	HENNEPIN COUNTY	Minneapolis	MN	Bronx County	Bronx	NY
FAIRFAX COUNTY	Fairfax (near DC)	VA	MECKLENBURG COUNTY	Charlotte	NC	WAKE COUNTY	Raleigh	NC	PINELLAS COUNTY	Clearwater	FL
TRAVIS COUNTY	Austin	TX	FULTON COUNTY	Atlanta	GA	MARION COUNTY	Indianapolis	IN	MONTGOMERY COUNTY	Rockville	MD
Du Page County	Next to Chicago	IL	MACOMB COUNTY	Warren	MI	Erie County	Buffalo	NY	Westchester County	White Plains (near NYC)	NY
DUVAL COUNTY	Jacksonville	FL	PIMA COUNTY	Tucson	AZ	ALASKA	(entire state)	AK	BERGEN COUNTY	Hackensack (Near NYC)	NJ
SALT LAKE COUNTY	Salt Lake City	UT	JEFFERSON COUNTY	Louisville	KY	HAMILTON	Cincinnati	OH	PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY	Near DC	MD
SHELBY COUNTY	Memphis	TN	MONTGOMERY COUNTY	Norristown (Near Philadelphia)	PA	CONTRA COSTA COUNTY	Walnut Creek	CA	BALTIMORE COUNTY	Baltimore	MD
ESSEX COUNTY	Newark	NJ	MIDDLESEX COUNTY	Edison (Near NYC)	NJ	COLLIN COUNTY	Plano	TX	DENVER COUNTY	Denver	CO
HONOLULU COUNTY	Honolulu	HI	DEKALB COUNTY	Near atlanta	GA	Monroe County	Rochester	NY	GWINNETT COUNTY	Near atlanta	GA
COBB COUNTY	Marietta (Near Atlanta)	GA	DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA	DC	DC	Lake County	Waukegan (near Chicago)	IL	KENT COUNTY	Grand Rapids	MI
PIERCE COUNTY	Tacoma	WA	MULTNOMAH COUNTY	Portland	OR	BERNALILLO COUNTY	Albuquerque	NM	SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY	San Francisco	CA
BUCKS COUNTY	Trenton	PA	VENTURA COUNTY	Ventura	CA	LEE COUNTY	Fort Myers	FL	EL PASO COUNTY	Colorado Springs	CO
JEFFERSON COUNTY	Near Denver	CO	MONMOUTH COUNTY	(near NYC)	NJ	FRESNO COUNTY	Fresno	CA	SNOHOMISH COUNTY	Everett (near Seattle)	WA
JEFFERSON COUNTY	Birmingham	AL	BREVARD COUNTY	Cocoa Beach	FL	DENTON COUNTY	Denton (near Dallas, Fort Worth)	TX	Will County	Near Chicago	IL
EL PASO COUNTY	El Paso	TX	OKLAHOMA COUNTY	Oklahoma City	OK	NEW CASTLE COUNTY	Wilmington	DE	ARAPAHOE COUNTY	Near Denver	CO
OCEAN COUNTY	Toms River, near NYC, Philly	NJ	BOSTON CITY	Boston	MA	JOHNSON COUNTY	Near Kansas City	KS	DELAWARE COUNTY	near philly	PA
POLK COUNTY	Betw. Orlando, Tampa	FL	MONTGOMERY	Near Cincinnati	OH	BALTIMORE CITY	Baltimore	MD	DAVIDSON COUNTY	Nashville	TN
KERN COUNTY		CA	FORT BEND COUNTY	Near Houston	TX	VOLUSIA COUNTY	Daytona Beach	FL	SUMMIT	Akron	OH
GUILFORD COUNTY	Greensboro	NC	SAN MATEO COUNTY		CA	LAKE COUNTY	Gary	IN	ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY		MD
CAMDEN COUNTY	Near Philly	NJ	TULSA COUNTY	Tulsa	OK	GENESEE COUNTY	Flint	MI	DOUGLAS COUNTY	Omaha	NE
MORRIS COUNTY	Near Newark	NJ	PASCO COUNTY	No. of Tampa	FL	HIDALGO COUNTY	So. Tip.	TX	CHESTER COUNTY	Near Philly	PA
UNION COUNTY	Near Newark	NJ	STANISLAUS COUNTY	Modesto	CA	HUDSON COUNTY	Jersey City	NJ	LUCAS	Toledo	OH
LANCASTER COUNTY	Near Philly	PA	Onondaga County	Syracuse	NY	RAMSEY COUNTY	St. Paul	MN	SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY	Stockton	CA
KNOX COUNTY	Knoxville	TN	PASSAIC COUNTY	Near Newark	NJ	WASHINGTON COUNTY	Near Portland	OR	SARASOTA COUNTY		FL
VIRGINIA BEACH CITY		VA	BURLINGTON COUNTY		NJ	GREENVILLE COUNTY	Greenville, w of Charlotte	SC	POLK COUNTY	Des Moines	IA
EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH	Baton Rouge	LA	MONTGOMERY COUNTY	No. of Houston	TX	SPOKANE COUNTY	Spokane	WA	SEMINOLE COUNTY	NE Orlando	FL
Richmond County	Staten Island	NY	WASHTENAW COUNTY	Ann Arbor	MI	SEDGWICK COUNTY	Wichita	KS	WILLIAMSON COUNTY	No. of Austin	TX
UTAH COUNTY	So. of SLC	UT	WASHOE COUNTY	Reno	NV	YORK COUNTY	York, so side	PA	JEFFERSON PARISH	New Orleans (W)	LA
ADAMS COUNTY	NE Denver	CO	ALLEN COUNTY	Fort Wayne	IN	MOBILE COUNTY	Mobile	AL	ST. CHARLES COUNTY	NW St. Louis	MO
PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY	SW Washington	VA	CHARLESTON COUNTY	Charleston	SC	BOULDER COUNTY	Boulder	CO	DAKOTA COUNTY	S. Minneapolis	MN
ORLEANS PARISH	New Orleans	LA	STARK	Canton	OH	CLARK COUNTY	No. Portland	WA	FORSYTH COUNTY	Winston Salem	NC
JACKSON COUNTY	SE Kansas City	MO	SONOMA COUNTY	Santa Rosa	CA	PULASKI COUNTY	Little Rock	AR	RICHLAND COUNTY	Columbia	SC
WESTMORELAND COUNTY	E. Pittsburgh	PA	Kane County	W. Chicago	IL	BERKS COUNTY	NW Philly	PA	BUTLER	N. Cincinnati	OH
LARIMER COUNTY	Fort Collins	CO	MARION COUNTY	Ocala (NW Orlando)	FL	MERCER COUNTY		NJ	MADISON COUNTY	Huntsville	AL
HAMILTON COUNTY	Chattanooga	TN	CLACKAMAS COUNTY	SE Portland	OR	ADA COUNTY	Boise	ID	DOUGLAS COUNTY	S. Denver	CO
MANATEE COUNTY	S. Tampa	FL	Orange County		NY	CHESTERFIELD COUNTY	SW Richmond	VA

Steps to get state teams started

Within each state, we need to do the following:

1. Election Districts

Compile a list of all the election districts. These are likely just the counties. Generally, we get a spreadsheet with the following columns:

WikiFileName

County

Contact

Title

Address

City

State

Zip

Phone

Fax

Email

Website

This should be available from the Secretary of State's web site. Usually, you can copy and paste into a spreadsheet and get the information but it may require some fixup. Let's call this ST-ElectionDistricts.csv (It can be a .xls (excel spreadsheet) or .ods (Open office spreadsheet) or just .CSV (character separated values). Most of the columns should be self-explanatory, except for:

• WikiFileName -- This is not a field you will collect from the state's SOS. It should be ST_CountyName, like CA_SanDiego. Leave out spaces.
• Contact - name of the election official, registrar of voters, county clerk, supervisor of elections, etc who is responsible for conducting elections and will be your contact for interaction.
• Title - Title of that contact.
• The rest of the contact information is generally how you will be contacting that person.

2. The current voter registration in each of the election districts.

You don't need to do this as we have already done it for all 50 states. We can provide this. We have collected recent voter registration numbers which will be close enough for our purposes here, by sorting the same file by State and then by Registered Voters. You should be able copy and paste the section for your state to your other file.

The following file is the registration of all counties sorted first by state then by county. Alabama has the sort of analysis to determine the top 20% targets and the top 40%.

• NatonalRegVotersByStatethenCounty.xlsx: County targets sorted by state then county

3. Combine

Sort both by district name and copy the registered voters column into the FL-ElectionDistricts.csv file. Save this.

4. Determine top 20%

We are not doing it this way any more as we are focused on the top 175, 300, or 500 counties. Sort by highest registered voters to least. Choose top 20% of the election districts. These will be our primary targets.

4.1 (Optional) create a colorful map of the counties of interest.

• Use this online tool: http://mapchart.net/usa-counties.html
• Choose the counties of interest.
• Download and then snip out just the state of interest using snipping tool.
• result should look like these for California and Florida

  

5. Check cumulative

We have already done this step for all states If you are good at spreadsheets, you may want to also create a column which is the RANK, which can be generated by the =RANK(value, column) syntax. That way the rank is preserved if you sort the districts by name or some other value. Also, create a column which is the cumulative reg. voters and one which is the % of the total. We are hoping that the top 20% will be about 80% of the vote. By way of example, in CA, the top 3 counties comprise about 50% of the vote, the top 20% (top dozen) counties comprises 76% of the vote, and the top 40% of the counties (2 dozen) comprise 92% of the vote.

6. Review the law regarding the post-election audits in your state.

Use this website: http://www.ceimn.org/searchable_databases/state_audit_laws

Most important is the existence of a Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT). DRE (Direct Recording Equipment) without an associated VVPAT means any audits performed cannot reach back to the voter intent, and are therefore worthless. Click the map to go to the verified voting site.

The follow ballot types are sufficient: Any combinations with DREs without VVPAT cannot be effectively audited.

• Paper Ballots
• Vote by Mail.
• Paper and punch card.
• DREs with VVPAT

The following file provides county-by-county details on voting equipment. Review this to see if you have an auditable paper trail.

• verifier-search.xlsx: This file provides the equipment used on county by county basis.

7. Locate and Review any "voter's bill of rights"

Will need to locate the "Voter's bill of rights" or similar laws in your election code that allow you to observe, ask questions, and get them answered by elections officials. These differ in all states.

• Example: In CA it is election code section 2300: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=elec&group=02001-03000&file=2300
  • Please note section (9) which says you have the right to ask questions and get them answered. This is very powerful.
• Requirements for notice of election audit meetings
  • This will be in the election code.

Don't know of a common place where these are all compiled, so we (COPs) may end up being that resource.

8. Locate and review "Open Meeting Laws" AKA "Sunshine Laws"

We need provisions that deal with the following areas in our tool box.

• Requirements for notice of any public meetings.
  • Sometimes just "reasonable" is all they say, but may also give specific time requirements.
• Requirements for providing public records
  • Typically called Public Records Acts, lie CPRA, California Public Records Act.
  • These laws require that public officials provide any public records to members of the public that request them, under the theory that the government is owned by the public, and therefore those are our records.

This site is helpful: https://ballotpedia.org/State_sunshine_laws

Remaining steps only for counties that include a post-election manual audit of some kind, no matter how weak.

9. Look for archived audit report for the targeted counties for prior election(s)

These may be available from the SOS website. Create a directory for each county on your computer with names such as ST_CountyName. Do not include any spaces in the folder name. Create a column in your district file and include the folder name in the appropriate cell. Name this column WikiFileName. Copy those files onto your computer in the appropriate folder of the same name. Note, this is not the audit of the ELECTION SYSTEMS but instead the recent audit reports from recent elections. These may not be instantly available, even though they should be posted. You may have to ask for them.

10. If the audit files are not available at the SOS website:

Look in each county website and attempt to locate the audit report. If you cannot find it, then ask the county for the report(s). Use this procedure: Requesting Information Procedure

Note: In CA, we noted that the Secretary of State discontinued posting these reports on their website since the 2010 elections. No one does oversight, and they start to atrophy into doing nothing.

11. Evaluate the audits

• Please see Election Audit Best Practices to see if they are conducting the audits correctly.
• Are they complying with the law?

12. Consult with Citizens Oversight experts.

Depending on our evaluation, we may want to file lawsuits to force them to comply with the law. Many laws are very weak, but something is better than nothing, and shortcutting weak laws makes them even weaker. However, we like to avoid lawsuits if at all possible and try to work with the elections officials in a business-like manner.

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