A Jefferson County polling location during the November 2022 election.(Justin Hicks)At a Jefferson County Elections Board meeting Tuesday, Clerk David Yates told members that a geographic software specialist from the State Board of Elections had reviewed the county’s election data. It came weeks a fter LPM News used records available online to determine that roughly 1,800 addresses in the county may be assigned to incorrect precincts.Yates said the state found 2,186 addresses needed "further review” by the clerk’s office, meaning the current precinct assignment could not be verified against digital maps.“It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re wrong, but it means that it’s difficult sometimes [to match them] to precincts,” Yates told board members.Yates said his office is looking closely at each of those addresses to determine the cause of each issue – or if there’s an issue at all. He believes some were caused by clerical errors like misnamed or mistyped streets. There’s also a known issue with addresses that may fall near county lines.Local election workers have a goal to review each of the addresses by July 31. Yates said, to their knowledge this is the first time they have ever conducted such an audit of voter assignment data.Yates said the state specialist told them about 99.6% of the addresses were assigned to the correct precincts.He used the opportunity to advocate for additional funding and resources for counties to integrate mapping technology into processes that assign voters to geographic districts.“We have got to have a [geographic information] system that updates in real time, because we have a glorified spreadsheet,” Yates said. “They want a digital map and we have broken crayons.”Yates said the clerk’s office is still preparing to solicit bids from third parties to help verify voter assignments and to improve the system going forward. ...read more read less