Early Vote Data in VAN
Collecting information about and excluding voters who have participated in early vote [updated 02/13/2024]
How do I exclude voters who have voted early? 1
How do I analyze who has voted? 2
Analysis on voters who have already voted 2
Analysis on Early Voting in-person 3
Determining party voted in of Early Voters (Republican or Democrat, PRIMARY ONLY) 4
What if I want to upload the early and mail voters on my own into VAN? 5
What data is collected?
TDP collects VUIDS of anyone who has voted so that campaigns can (1) No longer include them in their universe and (2) Understand who has voted
This data is coming directly from the SOS
If you have an early voting & mail roster that we are not collecting, submit a help ticket with the data to txdem.co/van-help
When does data come back?
Timing varies by county - some come in the evening, others in the morning. We generally get data within 48 hours of voters voting during early vote
From now until Election Day, please check txdem.co/EV-Status* to see what counties have updated their EV data. This tracker is updated automatically and is the fastest way to see if a county has sent in a vote by mail or early vote roster. We usually redirect questions about whether a county has been updated back to the link above.
How do I exclude voters who have early voted?
Leave the box checked to remove all mail & early voters in the “Early Voting” row on lists
How do I analyze who has voted?
Early Voter Status in Create a List
Because the SOS so severely restricts the data available, the only fields under Create a List in VAN tied to EV data are “Returned the Ballot” and “Early Voted.” The fields crossed out below will not have data associated with them:
Analysis on voters who have already voted
Go to Create a list
Remove all suppressions
Include only early voters & mail voters (mail = Returned the Ballot From)
Analysis on Vote by Mail
Go to Create a list
Remove all suppressions (see above for screenshot)
Early Voting row
Uncheck Exclude
Check Include
Anyone who returned a ballot
Run search
Analysis on Early Voting in-person
Go to Create a list
Remove all suppressions (see above for screenshot)
Early Voting row
Early Voted From: 3 months before early voting starts, leave To blank
Run search
Analyze via Counts and Crosstabs
Determining party voted in of Early Voters (Republican or Democrat, PRIMARY ONLY)
Go to Create a list
Remove all suppressions (see above for screenshot)
Early Voting row
Requested Party Ballot: Select either Republican or Democrat
Voted badges in MiniVan 8
Badges are the fail-safe in case you uncheck/left unchecked the remove all early/absentee voters in your list creation or sending to minivan/PDF/Print screens
If MiniVAN shows a "VOTED" badge, it means that a person or multiple persons have voted and no one should talk to them (only to say “Thanks for voting!” if they are at a house with someone who hasn’t voted)
These will be updated live, even when canvassers are out (e.g., if we get information during the day about who voted the badges will appear)
What if I want to upload the early and mail voters on my own into VAN?
You have the ability to bulk upload the voters into a saved list
Remember that you can utilize the My Saved List Row in Create A New List if you do go down this route.
A suggestion if you are going to go down this path: Do this as a saved list per day or have a cumulative list for mail and early voters. You could have one master cumulative list that you add to on your local sheet on your computer (or maybe your county always gives you a cumulative list) and then bulk upload to save over that old list as the voting days go on.
All users are prohibited from uploading vote history into activist codes or survey questions. This is TDP / DNC / VAN Policy to prevent a decrease in performance across the system that can happen with superfluous survey questions and activist codes.
You can also access and download the recording of the Early Vote Data - Info Forum here: txdem.co/EV-Data-Forum-Recording