Statement of Kimball W. Brace, President, Election Data Services Inc., to the United States Election Assistance Commission May 5, 2004.

Redistricting

Election Data Services Inc. is the nation’s leading redistricting expert with over twenty years of experience assisting state and local governments with redistricting. For redistricting, Election Data Services offers a variety of services, including database construction, data analysis, consulting, and litigation support.

Election Administration

With more than twenty years of involvement with redistricting, elections, and GIS, Election Data Services Inc. has developed a variety of products and services for election professionals in state and local government. These include the PRECIS® Precinct Information System for delineating precinct and district boundaries, displaying precinct-level tallies of registered voters, and generating street index files to automatically assign voters to precincts; PRECIS/Prowler a geo-explorer module that enables staff at multiple workstations on an office LAN (local area network) to query the PRECIS database; and voter registration systems studies and voting equipment studies -- i.e., needs assessments and requirements analyses for the design or acquisition of voter registration systems and voting equipment.

Election Data Services also provides files of election contacts from a database that contains mailing addresses, fax and telephone numbers, and other information for state and local election supervisors; and voting equipment maps and voting equipment reports that identify the types of voting equipment and names of equipment vendors used by elecztion jurisdictions in the United States. A Voting Equipment History Poster charts trends in the usage of various types of voting equipment from 1980 to 2002. A Voting Equipment Vendors Poster traces the history of voting equipment and voting equipment vendors back to 1892.

Political Information

From more than twenty years of experience with redistricting, elections, and GIS, Election Data Services Inc. has developed a variety of political information products for businesses, associations, and government organizations. These include congressional and legislative district boundary files and ZIP+DISTRICT database files and address matching services linking 5- and 9-digit postal ZIP Codes to current congressional and state legislative dis­tricts.

After each November general election, Election Data Services publishes an election results poster with thematic maps of returns for president, U.S. senator, U.S. representative, Governor, and members of state legislatures. Election data files containing county-level voting statistics and returns for the offices of president, U.S. senator, U.S. representa­tive, and governor from November general elections are also available.

Election Data Services also provides files of election contacts from a database that contains mailing addresses, fax and telephone numbers, and other information for state and local election supervisors; and voting equipment maps and voting equipment reports, and maps and statistical reports that identify the types of voting equipment and names of equipment vendors used by election jurisdictions throughout the United States.