On March 3rd, 2020, the State of California held its 2020 Presidential Primary Election. In Los Angeles County, the election saw the introduction of a brand-new voting system. This system, known as Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP), included the first use of Vote Centers in place of Polling Places and new digital Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs). In the Polling Place model, voters are restricted to their neighborhood Polling Place and can only vote on election day if the voter choses to vote in-person. The Vote Center model, as opposed to the Polling Place model, allows voters to vote at any Vote Center in the County during an eleven-day voting period. The new BMDs introduced in this election use digital touchscreen interfaces to mark paper ballots. When a ballot is marked, it is printed so the voter can review it and then cast in the same machine. The new BMD is a replacement for the inka-vote system which used an ink pen to fill in bubbles on a ballot. The change to the Vote Center Model and the introduction of BMDs are two parts of a much larger overhaul to Los Angeles County’s voting system; however, these two aspects of VSAP provided spatial data needed to understand the effectiveness of the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk office’s placement of Vote Centers throughout the County.   
On election day, the County had 975 Vote Centers available for voters to cast their ballots. Of these, 232 were open for ten days prior to election day. In addition, several mobile and pop-up Vote Centers were distributed throughout the county. For this analysis, only the fixed location Vote Centers were examined. For the Vote Center model to be effective, voters must be aware that Vote Centers are open for voting during that eleven-day period. This is because there are far fewer Vote Centers than polling places available for them to vote. If too many voters decide to vote in-person (as opposed to by mail) on election day, the result is overwhelmed Vote Centers and long lines. Though the County made every effort to let the public know about the new voting period, most voters chose to vote in-person on election day which resulted wait times of up to three hours. Compounding the public’s desire to vote on election day, the County also had difficulty recruiting Vote Centers and many of Vote Center’s did not have the BMD capacity necessary or were not in the most desirable locations. In addition, the County did not have an effective system of reporting wait times to the public. This resulted in some Vote Centers becoming overwhelmed while others experienced little voter traffic. 
This large-format map is intended as a reference tool for future Vote Center placement. The map includes two analyses examining the results of voter participation. First, the colored circles on the map represent the 975 Vote Centers throughout the County (some Vote Centers have been omitted from the map due to lacking data). The Vote Centers are symbolized by graduated symbols representing the rate of Voters per BMD. The color of the circles, ranging from light-yellow to dark-red, represents the number of BMDs at each Vote Center.  With this symbolization, small light-yellow circles represent Vote Centers that had few BMDs and a small rate of voters for each device. Conversely, large dark-red circles represent Vote Centers with many BMDs and a large rate of voters for each device. These two scenarios represent ideally placed Vote Centers. Unfortunately, what we can also see in the map are small dark-red circles and, especially, large light-yellow circles, which represent Vote Centers with too many and too few BMDs respectively. Each Vote Center is labeled with its Vote Center Identification Number for reference. 
The other analysis on the map is a heatmap representing the rate of vote-at-polls voters per BMD in each Vote Center Service Area (VCSA). Though with the Vote Center model voters can vote anywhere in the County, for recruitment and reporting purposes, the County was divided into VCSAs. There were 1,000 VCSAs in total. These included 250 eleven-day VCSAs and 750 four-day VCSAs. The 750 VCSAs were divisions of the 250 VCSAs. For this reason, only the 750 VCSAs were examined here. This heat map was constructed by finding the rate of vote-at-poll votes per BMD in each 750 VCSA and generating that number of random points within each VSCA. The resulting point layer was then used to generate a kernel density raster layer which resulted in the presented heatmap. 
The two analyses seem like they are looking at the same data; however, there is a crucial difference that makes this map even more valuable for future reference. The graduated symbol Vote Centers are examining the actual number of votes that were cast at each Vote Center. The heatmap, on the other hand, is representing the number of voters registered to vote in each service area that cast their ballot in-person. Because voters can vote anywhere in the County and are not restricted to voting within their service area, when examined together, the two analyses can provide an idea of whether voters are voting in their service area or in other parts of the County. This could allow for better Vote Center placement in the future.
Much of the data presented in this map shows that many Vote Centers were not placed ideally for the 2020 Presidential Primary Election in Los Angeles County. As is shown in the map, many Vote Centers had too few BMDs for the number of voters while many others had too many. This resulted in long lines and complaints from voters. Another observation that can be seen in this map is that there are Vote Centers with high rates of voters per BMD located in close proximity to Vote Centers with low rates of voters per BMD. The number of BMDs is a contribution to this observation, but another observation is that voters may not have known they could vote at other Vote Centers or they may have not known that other Vote Centers had shorter wait times. An increased effort in reporting this information to the public may result in shorter lines in future elections. 

One challenging aspect of this project was finding a way to visualize the rate of voters per BMD and deciding on which number to use (actual votes for each vote center or number of voters who voted in person per VCSA). Because I had access to both sets of data I wanted to show both, but the size of Los Angeles County and the amount Vote Centers required the use of a large format poster sized map. This resulted in longer time putting together a legible layout that could correctly visualize the data. This map, and future versions of it, may be a valuable tool to increase the effectiveness of Vote Center Placement for future elections.
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