Voting Guide Generator
Endorsements File
Description:
Generic Slate Cards that include all candidates running for office can be complex and difficult for voters to understand. Not all voters will be voting on all candidates and all amendments. Having excess information on a Slate Card is confusing and that confusion leads to frustration.
Creating Voting Guides that only contain information on candidates and amendments needed by a voter is a very complex problem. Identifying the unique variations of elections and amendments is the first challenge. Creating images/documents for each variation is another complex task. Determining which voter should recieve which variation is also very challenging.
The Voting Guide Generator solves all these problems. The generator allows you to identify the candidates and initiatives you wish to endorse, maps them to voters, and generates digital images similar to a ballot for each variation. The format of Voting Guides is similar to an actual ballot and the display order of elections match the order on official ballots. This makes Voting Guides easy for voters to use as a reference when casting their ballots.
Endorsements File:
The Voting Guides Generator requires a file which contains a list of all candidates, amendments, and referenda to be endorsed for the current election. That file must be a csv (Comma Separated Values) formatted text file. You can easily generate this file in any spreadsheet tool and save the results to a csv formatted text file. The file must have the following columns:
| BOC | English Title | Spanish Title | English Amendment | Spanish Amendment | Candidate 1 | Candidate 2 | DataField | Value | Style |
You can copy the above table and paste it into a blank spreadsheet to get started. The column content is as follows:
| BOC | A three letter designation of a spcific Ballot Order Code. (See Ballot Order Codes for a listing of all codes.) These codes are used to place contests on the generated Voting Guides in an order that matches the order on an official ballot. Multiple contests within a single BOC will be aphabetized by English Title. |
| English Title | The text of the contest title in english. It is desirable for this to match the title on the official ballot. |
| Spanish Title | The Spanish translation of the english title (optional). |
| English Amendment | The text of an amendment title in english. This column is not used for candidate entries. |
| Spanish Amendment | The Spanish translation of the amendment title (optional). This column is not used for candidate entries. |
| Candidate 1 | The name of the candidate |
| Candidate 2 | The name of the a running mate (Vice President or Lieutenant Governer) |
| DataField |
A VAT field name which defines the scope of the race. One of:
|
| Value | A well-known district number, precinct number, VAT Zone name, or SOE Defined District. SOE Defined Districts are defined by entering the disctict code/value pair with a slash separater. (Note: Leave this field blank for countywide contests.) |
| Style |
A style of indicator (vote for, approve, disapprove). Valid styles are:
|
NOTE: The first two lines on the endosements file can contain title and footer information. They will use the special office codes 'Title' and 'Footer' to distinguish them from the reset of the data. The prototype file generator will automatically populate these rows with default election and disclaimer data. The default election will be the next general election.
Primary Elections:
If you are generating Voting Guidess for a primary election, do the following:
- Replace the default english/spanish election titles as appropriate.
- Remove any/all races not present in the primary
- Add local elections and candidates as needed
- Proceed normally to generate Voting Guidess and digital images.
Output Files Generated:
The Voting Guides Generator will create six data files - GuideContents, RaceVarients, Master Precinct List, VAN_Upload_DEM, and VAN_Upload_NPA, VAN_Upload_REP. A seventh file containing infomation required to format digital Voting Guidess is generated and saved internally.
GuideContents - a csv formatted file containing the following columns:
| Column Name | Column defintion |
|---|---|
| VotingGuide | The unique identifier (id) of the Voting Guide. Each Voting Guide represents a unique combination of elections and amendments. |
| Active Dems | A count of the number of registered active democrats served by the card |
| LL NPA | A count of the number of registered NPA voters identified as left-leaning (using the VAN Tier 1 definition of left-leaning) |
| Election/Candidate | A list of the elections and candidate names covered by this Voting Guide |
| Precincts | A list of precinct/precinct-split numbers served by this Voting Guide. |
Varients - a csv formatted file containing the following columns:
| Column Name | Column defintion |
|---|---|
| Precinct_Split | A precinct_split number |
| VotingGuide | The Voting Guide identifier for this variation |
| Active Dems | A count of the number of registered active democrats targeted by this variation |
| LL NPA | A count of the number of registered NPA voters identified as left-leaning (using the VAN Tier 1 definition of left-leaning) |
| US-House | The Congressional District (US House of Representatives District) |
| FL-Senate | The Florida Senate District number |
| FL-House | The Florida House of Representatives District number |
| Comm-Dist | The County Commission District |
| School-Dist | The School Board District number | (R-01 thru R-xx) | Additional columns, one for each defined election. Will contain an 'X' is the race is included |
MasterPrecinctList - a text file.
This file contains a list precincts at the whole precinct number level. For each precinct, a list of all referenced (i.e. there are registered voters) precinct_splits are provided.
VAN_Upload_DEM, VAN_Upload_NPA, VAN_Upload_REP - csv formatted data files:
These files contain voter lists that can be used to update a VAN survey question with the Voting Guides ID of each voter. Using a VAN survey question enables the use of VAN selectivity in creating lists of voters. These lists can then be used to text or email voters with Voting Guidess that match their offical ballot. (See Customizing Emails and Texts with Voter Specific Voting Guides for more information on updating VAN with Voting Guides Identifiers.)
| Column Name | Column defintion |
|---|---|
| VoterID | The State File ID of the Voter |
| VotingGuide | The Voting Guide identifier for this voter. |