Just added or updated most of my county's ballot drop boxes
Just added or updated most of my county's ballot drop boxes
My state votes by mail (or ballot boxes). Every election, the county sends a voter's pamphlet with candidates and ballot box locations. I decided to map all of them, and was happy to see that a little more than half were already there. For these, most were missing at least some of the information, so I added to those.
Using satellite imagery, you can easily see most of them, so it makes it pretty easy to map them all.
On the nodes themselves, I included the following tags:
amenity=polling_station
drive_through=[yes/no] # most are, but some are not
last_checked=[current_date]
location=[outdoor/indoor]
name=[x County Ballot Drop Box]
opening_hours=24/7 # almost all are 24/7, except for some indoor boxes
polling_station=ballot_box
There were a few indoor boxes that I need to go survey in person. Once I get those, all except for one will be on the map in my county. The final remaining one is indoors on a military base, so I will be unable to survey for obvious reasons.
I do wonder if there's a better way to set the hours, since they're closed for most of the year except during elections. Because of special elections and primaries, I cannot just say that they're open from October to November. If anyone knows of a better way, please let me know! Additionally, I wonder if it's better to name them using the location name from the voter's pamphlet, rather than a generic county drop box name.
I encourage everyone to add their local ballot boxes before your next election, wherever you are!