Having accurate and up-to-date voter information is crucial for political engagement and campaign strategy. Political campaigns, advocacy groups, and researchers rely on voter files to understand the electorate and create tailored outreach efforts. If you need access to a voter file in PAD, check out the information below for more details.

What is a voter file?

A voter file is a detailed set of data that contains information about registered voters in a particular jurisdiction. These files are typically sourced from each state’s Board of Elections and are enhanced with additional commercial information. This information includes but is not limited to, demographic details, voting history, contact information, and insights into voters' political preferences. Political campaigns and advocacy groups use this data to create targeted outreach strategies that resonate with specific demographics.

Sometimes, voter files may also contain additional supplementary lists of unregistered individuals as well. 

How can I use a voter file, and why is it important?

• Targeted Outreach: Voter files empower political campaigns and advocacy groups to conduct more targeted and effective outreach. By understanding the demographics and voting history of specific groups, organizations can tailor their messaging to resonate with their intended audience.
  
  Resource Optimization: Accessing a voter file allows for the efficient allocation of resources. Campaigns can prioritize regions or demographics more likely to be receptive to their message, optimizing time and budget.
  
  
• Data-Driven Decision-Making: Voter files provide valuable insights for data-driven decision-making. Analyzing trends in voter behavior can inform campaign strategies, helping organizations make informed choices on messaging, advertising, and mobilization efforts.

How do I get access to a voter file in PAD?

• Expressing interest to CTA: If you or your organization needs access to voter file data, the first step is to express your interest. To start the process, you can reach out to our team via help@techallies.org, and we can help guide you through getting the file of your choosing. 
  
  
• Provide details about how you’ll receive the voter file: Our team can ingest and deliver various voter files from sources such as TargetSmart and Catalist. We can also deliver a national file, or a small subset of a file, depending on your needs. The more information you can provide about the voter file source, the level of voter file access (i.e. national access, statewide access, etc.), and any other necessary information will help speed along the process.
  
  
• Do you have an existing voter file contract from a vendor? Loop us into the conversation: If you already have an existing license or are already in contact with a vendor for voter file access, you are welcome to loop us into the conversation so we can help provide any details and answer questions.
  
  

** Please note: CTA will not grant access to a voter file in PAD unless CTA is specifically authorized to ingest and deliver the data. **

What voter file vendor data is CTA able to deliver?

• TargetSmart: We work closely with TargetSmart to ingest and deliver their VoterBase data and other datasets. If you would like more information about the CTA TargetSmart offerings, you can email us at help@techallies.org. If you’d like to connect with TargetSmart directly, you can contact them here.
  
  
• Catalist: We work closely with Catalist to ingest and deliver their Dynamic National Database data. If you would like more information about the CTA Catalist offerings, you can email us at help@techallies.org. If you’d like to connect with Catalist directly, you can reach out to them here.
  
  

If a voter file vendor you’d like to use is not on the list above, let us know! You can contact us at help@techallies.org to discuss including a different data source.

How can I most efficiently query voter file data in PAD?

Be as specific in your queries as possible, and avoid SELECT *s! Depending on the table, we deliver voterfile data clustered by fields like state or election_date. This means that it is significantly more efficient to query these tables with a WHERE statement limiting by state, election_date or other common fields. You may also see a partition auto-added when you select a table to query that is clustered - you can delete it or edit it accordingly in your query.

Voter file matching in PAD

CTA is excited to offer voter file matching directly within PAD! All you need to do is have an existing contract with TargetSmart or Catalist, and our team can get the workflow up and running. 

For more information on this process, please refer to our help documentation here.

If I have a license to receive absentee and early vote data, what can I expect to see in PAD?

CTA delivers absentee and early vote data as part of our voter file deliveries to partners with voter file contracts.

For Catalist data: All partners receiving an install from Catalist will also receive two tables for AVEV data in PAD: the ballots and avev tables. The ballots table can be found in your state Catalist datasets, and the avev table can be found in a separate dataset titled catalist_avev_national. Both tables are refreshed daily. A data dictionary is available for these tables in the ‘Description’ field of the table schema, accessible by clicking on the table name in PAD. Contact your Catalist representative for more details about these tables and AVEV file refresh timing; you will see refreshed tables in PAD shortly after Catalist delivers them to us. 

For TargetSmart data: All partners with an AVEV contract from TargetSmart will receive one table with AVEV data in PAD: the early_absentee_vote table. This table can be found in your targetsmart dataset, and is refreshed daily or twice-daily, depending on data availability from TargetSmart. Contact your TargetSmart representative for more details about these tables and AVEV file refresh timing; you will see refreshed tables in PAD shortly after TargetSmart delivers them to us.  

Absentee and Early Vote data availability is dependent on how, what, and when states report their data and how that data is cleaned and transformed by voter file vendors. Since there is variability across states and across vendors, you may see different values and data available across different states.

CTA offers custom AVEV dashboards for a fee, built by our team for your use. Whether you need basic reports on EV numbers across a set of states or are looking for complex reporting to track things like rejected ballots, we can help you stand up reporting quickly and easily. Dashboards can range from allowing you to drill down into demographics to better understand EV results - without any lag time - to overviews of ballot statuses or crosstabs for different geographies. We can also layer in data from other sources in your reporting, whether target universes in VAN or other voter mobilization tools. If you are interested in a custom dashboard, reach out to our team at info@techallies.org.

Who can I contact at CTA for help on this process?

You can contact our team at help@techallies.org, or you can reach out to your designated CTA representative, and we’ll be happy to answer any questions!