July 2, 2019, New Orleans, LA -- National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) has announced Meagan Wolfe, Administrator, Wisconsin Elections Commission, will be the keynote speaker at the Elections GeoSummit, on August 14, 2019, in Washington, DC.

The Elections GeoSummit brings together the nation’s leaders in elections management and geographic information systems (GIS) to share leading-edge findings and craft best practices to enhance election systems through 2020 and beyond. The event represents the culmination of NSGIC’s two-year Geo-Enabled Elections project, and features agenda highlights including learnings and best practices from states working to integrate GIS in Elections.

“Leveraging GIS in our electoral systems increases accuracy and efficiency in elections,” says Molly Schar, NSGIC Executive Director. “It ensures every voter has a chance to vote in the right electoral contests. It also makes election management systems easier to update as our physical environment changes through new development, or after the redrawing of boundaries, as occurs through re-districting,” she adds.

Wisconsin is one of the leaders nationwide in geo-enabled elections, after a conversion process that started in 2011, against the backdrop of the 2010 census and the upcoming re-districting process at that time.

Meagan Wolfe is the Administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission and serves as the Chief Election Official for the State of Wisconsin. Meagan was appointed by the bi-partisan, six-member Commission in February of 2018. The Wisconsin State Senate then unanimously confirmed her appointment in May 2019.

The Geo-Enabled Elections project, phase one, runs from October 1, 2017 to September 30, 2019, with the aim to help strengthen electoral systems by supporting states in the adoption of GIS. Concretely, this means encouraging state governments to replace non-spatial ‘address file’ systems with election precinct and voter data in a GIS format, leveraging that format’s inherent visual and analytical advantages.

The Elections GeoSummit will be held at The Eaton, 1201 K St, NW, Washington, DC, 20005 on August 14, 2019. Registration is required. Press passes are available.

To learn more about the Geo-Enabled Elections project, please visit https://elections.nsgic.org.



Contact:

GeoSummit
Molly Schar
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