Wrong Districts in 20161108__oh__general__precinct

[hodgesmr]

There are incorrect districts in 20161108__oh__general__precinct.

I'm not sure if it's incorrect across the board, but I discovered it in the case of OH-01 and OH-02 both crossing into Hamilton County.

For example:

Hamilton,BLUE ASH 1-A,AAA,Representative to Congress,1,R,Steve Chabot,0
Hamilton,BLUE ASH 1-A,AAA,Representative to Congress,1,,Sholom D. Keller,0
Hamilton,BLUE ASH 1-A,AAA,Representative to Congress,1,,Kiumars G. Kiani,0
Hamilton,BLUE ASH 1-A,AAA,Representative to Congress,1,D,Michele Young,0
Hamilton,BLUE ASH 1-A,AAA,Representative to Congress,2,,Janet Everhard,0
Hamilton,BLUE ASH 1-A,AAA,Representative to Congress,2,D,William R. Smith,157
Hamilton,BLUE ASH 1-A,AAA,Representative to Congress,2,R,Brad Wenstrup,364

I do not believe the Hamilton,BLUE ASH 1-A,AAA precinct should include any District 1 candidates.

I checked the 2016 Hamilton Country source file from the sources repository, and the aforementioned Blue Ash district appears on the District 2 sheet, but not in the District 1 sheet.

I also grabbed an export from the Hamilton County board of elections and confirmed that the precincts don't accommodate multiple districts.

The issue happens in the other direction as well:

Hamilton,CINCINNATI 3-A,ACZ,Representative to Congress,1,R,Steve Chabot,72
Hamilton,CINCINNATI 3-A,ACZ,Representative to Congress,1,,Sholom D. Keller,0
Hamilton,CINCINNATI 3-A,ACZ,Representative to Congress,1,,Kiumars G. Kiani,0
Hamilton,CINCINNATI 3-A,ACZ,Representative to Congress,1,D,Michele Young,618
Hamilton,CINCINNATI 3-A,ACZ,Representative to Congress,2,,Janet Everhard,0
Hamilton,CINCINNATI 3-A,ACZ,Representative to Congress,2,D,William R. Smith,0
Hamilton,CINCINNATI 3-A,ACZ,Representative to Congress,2,R,Brad Wenstrup,0

The Hamilton,CINCINNATI 3-A,ACZ precinct should be a District 1 precinct, but should not be a District 2 precinct.

I found that all precincts in Hamilton County in 20161108__oh__general__precinct appear for District 1 and District 2 candidates.

It's entirely possible that this issue extends beyond Hamilton County, but I haven't yet had a chance to investigate.

[dwillis]

Am I correct in thinking that precincts with all candidates receiving 0 votes is the pattern here?

[hodgesmr]

That's what I'm currently investigating. I've limited my scope to only the Representative to Congress office for now.

I've found many more instances that do follow this pattern beyond just Hamilton County.

The good news is, with that scope and pattern in mind, I'm not finding any instances where a given precinct has 0 votes for all candidates in all distrcits.

The biggest unknown here is: Are there any precincts that appropriately service more than one district?

I might have a PR addressing this, if I can be confident in that pattern.

[dwillis]

I suspect that it might require us to look at state legislative races to confirm whether split precincts exist.

[hodgesmr]

Here's an example of a precinct that has non-zero votes for two different congressional districts:

Huron,HARTLAND TWP,ABS,Representative to Congress,4,D,Janet Garrett,1
Huron,HARTLAND TWP,ABS,Representative to Congress,4,R,Jim Jordan,3
Huron,HARTLAND TWP,ABS,Representative to Congress,7,R,Bob Gibbs,301
Huron,HARTLAND TWP,ABS,Representative to Congress,7,I,Dan Phillip,30
Huron,HARTLAND TWP,ABS,Representative to Congress,7,D,Roy Rich,104

Looking at the source pdf for Huron County, this appears to be correct.

Since it's apparently possible for a precinct to service two different congressional districts, I don't think we can confidently say that the pattern of zero-votes is adequate. For example, a precinct could correctly service District A and District B and actually have recorded zero votes for the candidates in District B. In that scenario, we wouldn't want to filter out District B's zero-vote results from the precinct results.

[dwillis]

Yeah, split precincts are definitely a thing, and we should document this in general.

[hodgesmr]

For the sake of proving to myself that my hypothetical my last comment exists:

Franklin,DUB 1-B,ARH,Representative to Congress,3,R,John Adams,0
Franklin,DUB 1-B,ARH,Representative to Congress,3,D,Joyce Beatty,0
Franklin,DUB 1-B,ARH,Representative to Congress,12,D,Ed Albertson,111
Franklin,DUB 1-B,ARH,Representative to Congress,12,,John J. Baumeister,0
Franklin,DUB 1-B,ARH,Representative to Congress,12,G,Joe Manchik,9
Franklin,DUB 1-B,ARH,Representative to Congress,12,R,Pat Tiberi,351
Franklin,DUB 1-B,ARH,Representative to Congress,15,R,Steve Stivers,0
Franklin,DUB 1-B,ARH,Representative to Congress,15,D,Scott Wharton,0

and from the source file:

However: Franklin County's source document doesn't leave any of the vote fields blank. It looks like they 0 every field, even if a precinct is not part of a given district (for whichever office you're looking at).