The Forward Montana Foundation works to educate, engage, and organize young Montanans in democracy and voting. Forward Montana was interested in determining the distance that voters (particularly rural and Native American voters) have to travel to cast their ballot in Montana. The Forward Montana Foundation intends to use this information to guide advocacy efforts to ensure that as counties look to consolidate polling location, undue burden is not placed on vulnerable voters, such as rural or Native American voters.
Fay geocoded all the voters and polling locations in Montana. This involved using Montana’s Cadastral Reference System to identify Native American voters with non-traditional address formats. Fay then matched all voters to their precincts and calculated this distance between every voter and their respective voting location. The distances between every voter and their voting location was then averaged at the county and polling location level. Once distances were calculated, Fay then analyzed the relationship between key demographics and distance to polling locations, and turnout. This meant creating regressions related to race, age, income, and education.
Fay then highlighted the counties in Montana that saw the longest travel to the polls in order to determine the impact of polling location consolidation.
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