{"id":773609,"date":"2026-06-30T10:50:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=arcnews&#038;p=773609"},"modified":"2026-06-30T14:52:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T21:52:27","slug":"oklahoma-automates-election-data-maintenance","status":"publish","type":"arcnews","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/oklahoma-automates-election-data-maintenance","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma Automates Election Data Maintenance, Improving Accuracy"},"author":6921,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","transcript_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10392,10412,401],"tags":[23402,165542,23452,442371,282572],"arcnews_issues":[493539],"class_list":["post-773609","arcnews","type-arcnews","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arcgis-online","category-arcgis-pro","category-government","tag-automation","tag-data-sharing","tag-elections","tag-voting","tag-workflows","arcnews_issues-summer-2026","arcnews_sections-your-work"],"acf":{"short_description":"After moving to ArcGIS Pro, the small team that manages the state\u2019s voting-related street records made the data easier to share and use.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"In a democracy, voting is geography. The street someone lives on determines their congressional district, the school board candidates on their ballot, and the municipal races they vote in. If the geography is wrong, democracy can break down at a fundamental level.\r\n\r\nIn Oklahoma, this geographic information has been maintained for more than 20 years by a small team at the <a href=\"https:\/\/ou.edu\/ags\/csa\">University of Oklahoma\u2019s Center for Spatial Analysis<\/a> (CSA). But by 2020, the team's system was showing its age. Manual data processing, delayed quality checks, and a cumbersome workflow that took 11\u201312 hours every month left too much room for human error. And the stakes were about to get higher: Redistricting would redraw boundaries across the entire state.\r\n\r\nCSA modernized its GIS by moving from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro, creating a single database, and automating quality assurance and data processing workflows. Now, Oklahoma\u2019s election data is easier to share and use.\r\n<h2>A System Under Strain<\/h2>\r\nEstablished in 1994 as a research unit at the University of Oklahoma, CSA has supported the Oklahoma State Election Board since 1996. The center maintains spatial data for street records tied to voter precincts and jurisdictional boundaries across all 77 counties in Oklahoma.\r\n\r\nUntil a few years ago, CSA\u2019s workflow relied on a database management system for data ingestion and validation, paired with ArcMap for spatial editing."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":773612,"image_position":"left","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"\u201cIt worked for a long time, but there were human error issues with data entry and delayed review and notification,\u201d said Jacob Tillotson, senior GIS analyst at CSA.\r\n\r\nEvery month, CSA received data from Oklahoma\u2019s counties and ran dozens of manual queries to process changes. Quality assurance checks happened at the end of each cycle, after CSA staff completed their edits.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf there was an error, you\u2019d find out about it about two weeks later,\u201d Tillotson explained. \u201cYou\u2019d have to go back and try to remember what you did and why you did it.\u201d\r\n\r\nUnder the former process, onboarding was also a challenge because it relied on institutional knowledge and long manual sequences.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe modernization simplified the monthly run and added redundancy,\u201d Tillotson said, adding that now, \u201csomeone with a high-level understanding of the project can step in if one of us is out.\u201d\r\n<h2>The Tipping Point<\/h2>\r\nIn 2020, in addition to imminent redistricting, CSA was upgrading from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro. This transition raised questions about the long-term viability of CSA\u2019s aging database system.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere was growing concern about relying on a legacy platform,\u201d Tillotson said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to be put in a position where we were forced to react.\u201d\r\n\r\nDr. Todd Fagin, executive associate director at CSA, noted that the center\u2019s role in a complex data ecosystem added urgency to the effort. CSA works alongside the State Board of Education, the Oklahoma Tax Commission, 77 county election boards, and other contractors\u2014all maintaining parts of a system that must remain consistent and accurate.\r\n<h2>Building a Modern Foundation<\/h2>\r\nFrom their years as student interns to their current roles at CSA, Tillotson and Zakary Gipson, another senior GIS analyst, had accumulated deep knowledge of the project\u2019s challenges and potential solutions. They spearheaded the system upgrade. Before beginning the redesign, they attended conferences; learned from the GIS community; and accumulated knowledge of PostgreSQL, Python, C#, and ArcGIS Pro SDK for .NET.\r\n\r\nThe modernized architecture centers on three major components.\r\n\r\nFirst, CSA migrated from its legacy database system to PostgreSQL, with spatial database engine capabilities. This change enabled the team to consolidate 77 separate county file sets into a single statewide database that multiple users could edit simultaneously.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe workflow is now a clear three-stage pipeline\u2014ingest, report, and submit\u2014not a long chain of manual queries,\u201d Tillotson explained.\r\n\r\nSecond, the team used ArcGIS Pro SDK and C# to develop custom tools. The most significant is the checks button, which runs more than 80 quality assurance tests on the data."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":773611,"image_position":"right","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"The checks tool transformed quality assurance from an end-of-cycle bottleneck into an immediate safeguard. When analysts finish working on a county, the system prompts them to run the checks. Any problems are immediately flagged with an explanation, allowing analysts to fix errors on the spot rather than weeks later.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe ArcGIS Pro checks tool validates entries against lookup tables, so mistakes are caught immediately,\u201d rather than weeks after they occurred, Tillotson said.\r\n\r\nThird, the team automated data processing using Python scripts.\r\n\r\nThe old report generation process required staff to manually create three PDF reports for every county with data changes, every month. This process took five to six hours. The new automated system generates reports and emails them to county election boards in a single run\u2014all in less than 10 minutes.\r\n\r\n\u201cMonthly processing now includes automatic before-and-after snapshots and nightly backups,\u201d Tillotson said, \u201cso audits and rollbacks are straightforward without rebuilding anything by hand. Some codes are also autopopulated from lookup tables during processing.\u201d\r\n<h2>Enterprise Technology and Public Access<\/h2>\r\nThe new system leverages ArcGIS Online as its foundation. CSA maintains a 10-server infrastructure that hosts its enterprise systems and the State of Oklahoma GIS Data Warehouse. Powered by ArcGIS Hub, the warehouse provides free public access to precinct boundaries and other election-related datasets.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf data can be shared, it should be shared,\u201d Gipson said. \u201cThe data warehouse is a great way for us to do that, and it makes all this data more transparent and easier to access.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe transition to ArcGIS Hub marked a significant improvement over CSA\u2019s previous HTML-based data repository, which primarily served existing GIS users who wanted to download shapefiles.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt wasn\u2019t really designed for the general public,\u201d Fagin noted.\r\n\r\nThe modern platform includes a viewer that allows anyone with a web browser to access and explore election data without specialized GIS software.\r\n\r\nThe publicly available data serves multiple constituencies. County election boards download updated precinct boundaries for their operations, news organizations use the data for election coverage, and members of the public can verify their own precinct assignments and polling locations.\r\n<h2>A Seamless Transition<\/h2>\r\nOne of the most remarkable aspects of the modernization is what didn\u2019t change\u2014the State Election Board\u2019s experience. CSA continued delivering its reports and met all regular deadlines throughout the transition. The only indication that something had changed came from CSA\u2019s primary contact at the State Election Board, who noticed fewer errors than in the past.\r\n\r\n\u201cThey never saw any changes on their end,\u201d Tillotson said. \u201cThey never actually even knew that this was [happening] on our side.\u201d\r\n<h2>Lessons for Other States<\/h2>\r\nOklahoma\u2019s election GIS modernization can be a model for other states facing similar challenges. The key takeaway, according to Fagin, is recognizing when a legacy system has outlived its usefulness.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s good reason that anyone who\u2019s still using a single-user database and managing multiple databases may want to go to a multiuser database,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nFor more information on CSA, email Fagin at <a href=\"mailto:tfagin@ou.edu\">tfagin@ou.edu<\/a> or CSA director Dr. Chengbin Deng at <a href=\"mailto:cdeng@ou.edu\">cdeng@ou.edu<\/a>."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Oklahoma Automates Election Data Maintenance | Summer 2026 | ArcNews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After moving to ArcGIS Pro, the small team that manages the state\u2019s voting-related street records made the data easier to share and use.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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