Skip to main content

Geo-Enabling Elections 101: Convening a Team of Specialists

Geo-Enabling Elections 101 provides an overview of GIS and explores the first of NSGIC’s five best practices for geo-enabing elections by helping you assemble a team of experts that will set you up for success.

  • Course Number

    GIS101
  • Self-Paced

About This Course

This is the first course in a five-course series on geo-enabling elections. In this course, you’ll learn how to:

  • Identify local and state partners to support your future GIS work and goals
  • Prioritize initial conversation topics with partners to set your team up for success
  • Communicate the benefits of partnering with peer offices on GIS projects

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SA

This license lets you remix, adapt, and build upon the training non-commercially, as long as you credit the National States Geographic Information Council and the Center for Tech and Civic Life and license your new creations under the identical terms.

Course Staff

Jamie Chesser

Jamie Chesser is the Director of Programs at the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC), where she serves as a collaborative, energetic partner working with the executive director, staff, leadership volunteers, membership, organizational partners, and stakeholders to advance the mission of the organization. Jamie draws on a life and career full of geospatial science and GIS technology teaching and curriculum building, project management, public speaking and facilitation, and community organizing and activism.

Josh Simon Goldman

Josh Simon Goldman is Program Manager with the Center for Tech and Civic Life. He got his start working at a national civic nonprofit, helping young leaders of different backgrounds come together to serve their communities. These days Josh supports local election administrators who want to run the most inclusive and secure elections they can, applying years of civic and leadership training experience.

As an instructor, Josh focuses on offering you practical ideas that you can see yourself implementing to positively impact your office and your voters.

Rocío Hernandez

Rocío Hernandez is a Government Services Training Associate at CTCL. She helps train election administrators who want to increase their reach and capacity. Before joining CTCL, Rocio worked in education research where she identified opportunities to increase the impact of college readiness programs.

As an instructor, Rocío is determined to create content that is accessible to all election officials--whether you are just starting out or you are well-versed in election administration.

Dylan Lynch

Dylan Lynch is the Elections Cybersecurity Education & Compliance Specialist for the Iowa Secretary of State's office. He was previously a Training Associate at the Center for Tech and Civic Life. He helped develop and deliver training courses that advance the tech and communication skills of election officials. Prior to joining CTCL, Dylan worked for the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) as an elections policy specialist. Dylan earned his Master of Public Administration, focusing on public policy, from Drake University.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I complete the course?

There are a few steps to complete a course. After you complete the content, the course will prompt you to:

  1. Complete a post-course survey
  2. Confirm that you have reviewed all course materials
  3. Request your course certificate

Please complete all of these steps, so that we can count your progress! We will describe each step in detail at the end of the course.

Do I receive a certificate for this course?

Yes! At the end of each course, there are instructions for completing the course and generating a certificate of completion.

What web browser should I use?

The Open edX platform works best with current versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari.

Enroll