Create A List
Updated 06-21-2023
Resources to assist you in understanding the Create a List feature in VAN and each of the dozens of search options it provides you.
How do I search by Precinct, County Commissioner or Justice of the Peace/Constable in a list? 7
Other Search Criteria (Listed A-Z) 7
Voter Status and Voter Registration 16
What is Create a List?
Create a List is VAN’s handiest feature. With it, you have access to every voter in your district. You can use it to apply a virtually unlimited number of criteria to find exactly the voters you need to win.
The level of microtargeting Create a List allows for is extremely useful. List building can identify voters by geographic areas, such as voting precincts or neighborhoods. It can target voters by specific interest group, electoral participation, or partisanship to maximize your campaign’s resources. It can even streamline your phone banking and mailing campaigns by creating everything you need with a few clicks.
The purpose of this guide is to put all of that information into a single repository. Even VAN experts still have questions about what they can do with Create a List, which contains too many search criteria to count. We’ve included information on what your lists can do, what beginners need to learn first, and a general overview of each and every search criterion included in Create a List.
Using Lists
Once you’ve created a list, you can jump right into calling folks, creating turf for canvassing, or exporting your list to use for mailers, labels, and more outside of VAN. Creating a list is the first step to nearly every task in your campaign.
Below are a few of the most essential uses for lists with a short summary and a link to the FAQ section for each:
Labels: Create pre-made labels for sending mail to voters
Calls: Allows you to create Virtual Phone Banks of the voters in your list
Emails: Allows you to blast emails to voters whose emails you’ve collected
Export: Allows you to pull certain voter information out of the VAN
Counts: Allows you to compare and contrast types of voters
Cut Turf: Allows you to easily create turfs for canvassing
Getting Started
If you’re brand new to VAN, start with our helpful Creating a New List video here!
While each search criterion has a purpose, there are a few that are most important to kickstart your campaign or serve your county. We therefore ask beginners to learn the most common criteria first, listed below:
Most Common Search Criteria
Below are summaries of the most common search criteria available through Create a List.
Each has at least two sections: “What is it” explains what sorts of voters you’ll be able to find using it, and “When should I use it” offers guidance on when to do so.
Activist Codes
What is it?
Activist Codes refer to designations applied to voters, used to put them into easily searchable categories. Activist Codes include Constituency/Issue codes like Labor and Immigration Reform, Demographic codes like LGBTQ and Jewish, and codes for folks who have attended certain events or held certain roles such as Democratic candidates and convention attendees.
Additional guidance on using Activist Codes can be found here.
When should I use it?
Activist Codes make it incredibly easy to micro-target voters for all sorts of purposes. For instance, if your campaign is reaching out to voters who we know care deeply about a specific issue, you can search for folks tagged with that issue’s code. Similarly, if you’re looking to contact only the most active Democratic volunteers, you can search for folks tagged with Precinct Chair, Convention Attendee, and more.
Canvass Status
What is it?
Canvass Status refers to all of the voters that your campaign has spoken to over its duration. The core of Canvass Status is the very first drop-down box. In it, you can select either to Include Only or Exclude. Include Only will put only people that match your criteria into the list, while exclude will remove them.
Once you’ve selected one of these options, the rest of Canvass Status will open up. The checkboxes below will each either include or exclude certain people. These boxes contain common responses to canvassers: Canvassed, Not Home, Disconnected, and more*.
Each checkbox below will further affect your list. You can search for specific MiniVAN Campaigns, by input and contact types, or even by canvasser to pull up the data for a specific staff member or volunteer.
The last two important options are Date Entered and Origin. Date Entered restricts the canvassing data by date. Origin can restrict your lists to data originating only from VAN or include data from elsewhere.
More information on Canvass Status and what each option means can be found here:
FAQ - Canvass Results and Suppressions
When should I use it?
Canvass Status is the most important tool VAN has for following up with voters you’ve already reached out to or removing voters who’ve heard from your campaign already. You can, for instance, include only people who you’ve previously canvassed to do a second pass, or exclude canvassed people to target only the voters you’ve missed.
There are also useful tools for zeroing in on specific details. Date Entered can help you monitor contact rate over time, while Canvassed By allows you to audit the work of specific staff or volunteers.
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Early Voting
What is it?
Early Voting refers to whether or not people have already voted early as well as the status of their ballot applications. The first two checkboxes will either include or exclude only those who have early voted or voted absentee.
Early Voter Status can further target voters based on how they vote. However, for contacting voters requesting to vote absentee by mail-in ballot, we recommend using Targets instead.
We have additional guidance on Early Voting data and when it becomes available here.
When should I use it?
For Get Out the Vote, excluding people who have already voted can be a tremendous help. Instead of wasting resources talking to folks who’ve already turned out, you can focus your efforts on turning out every Democrat possible.
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Home Districts
What is it?
Home Districts refer to the various electoral districts - ranging from Congressional down to the Precinct level - that voters live within. Selecting any of the subcriteria listed under Home Districts will limit your search to include only voters within those districts.
Home Districts initially only displays a few options, such as State House and SBOE. However, once you select the County, several more options will appear, specifically Precinct, County Commissioner, and JP/Constable. You will have to select a County before you are able to view any of these options.
Some searches will require you to search multiple precincts. You will need to individually select the voting precincts that are encompassed by these districts by clicking on the word Precinct as shown below:
More information on Home Districts can be found here: How do I search by Precinct, County, County Commissioner or Justice of the Peace/Constable in a list?
When should I use it?
Home Districts is the perfect feature for narrowing down voters by geographic area or creating canvassing lists by precinct.
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My Saved Lists
What is it?
My Saved Lists refers to the lists you (or someone who has shared a list with you) has created and saved in the past.
When should I use it?
This feature allows you to instantly pull a previously used list back up (e.g., everyone from yesterday’s text universe, or a list you obtained from an open records request). You can expand previous lists by including those voters on top of another list, or do the opposite by removing them.
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Suppressions
What is it?
Suppressions refer to a set of easy-to-use tools to quickly remove voters you probably don’t want to include in your lists. Suppressions gives you access to options such as Deceased, Do Not Walk/Call/Email/Mail, and Bad Mailing address
More information on Suppressions and what each option means can be found here:
FAQ - Canvass Results and Suppressions
When should I use it?
Always - it’s important to remove folks who don’t want to be contacted. Otherwise, they’ll be less likely to engage with Democrats in the future.
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Survey Questions
What is it?
Survey Questions refer to the categories that we use to record the information voters provide to us. It’s the most important tool we have to keep track of how voters respond to canvassers - and therefore a powerful list building tool as well.
Once you select a Survey Question, you will then be able to select which responses you’d like to include in your list. You can further narrow your search by specifying how the responses were entered, when they were entered, and who - either canvasser or committee - entered them.
Lastly, checking “Most Recent Response Only” will ensure you only see folks based on their most recent responses. Sometimes, re-canvassed voters may provide different answers, so this checkbox can address that. Remember, TDP now creates all Survey Questions for most committees.
If you’d like to learn about what each Survey Question refers to or our recent changes to them, we have an in-depth guide available here: TDP Survey Questions Guide.
When should I use it?
Survey Questions are the easiest tool for finding voters who have already responded to your campaign or other campaigns that overlap with yours. Oppositely, you can exclude folks that have already responded to your campaign.
For example, searching your campaign’s Volunteer SQ and selecting “Yes” will pull up a list of folks who have responded with interest for volunteering, allowing you to contact them easily. Similarly, you can search the various XCmty questions to find folks who have already responded to other Democratic campaigns.
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Targets
What is it?
Targets are groups of voters that TDP has designated for campaigns and counties to contact. Different targets have different purposes, such as recruiting volunteers, finding democratic voters, and identifying persuadable voters. They are computed by the TDP data team using scores and metrics with the goal of simplifying your creating a list.
If you’d like to learn about what each target means and what voters comprise it, we have more information here: TDP Targets and Scripts.
When should I use it?
Targets are essentially premade lists! Using them will drastically simplify the list building process; by selecting a Target and then specifying only a specific area in Home Districts, you will receive a list of voters who fit a pre-built set of characteristics.
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Voting History
What is it?
Voting History refers to voters’ participation in past General, Primary, and certain off-year Elections. You will first have to specify how you would like to select voters based on their participation. Each is self-explanatory: “Any” will select folks who participated in any selected election, “All” in all selected elections, and so on.
Once an option is selected, you will then be able to check each election to include. If you’d like to further narrow your search, you can specify how each person voted, and for Primaries, you can specify which Primary they participated in.
Special Election data - referring to off-year elections only to fill vacant seats - are not included in this tab. This information is sometimes available by request.
When should I use it?
This criterion is the easiest way to identify people most and least likely to vote based on past participation. You can search folks identified as strong democrats but who have not participated in past elections for turnout, or search reliable voters who may not identify strongly with the Democratic Party for persuasion.
Other common questions
How do I search by Precinct, County Commissioner or Justice of the Peace/Constable in a list?
Other Search Criteria (Listed A-Z)
Below is a summary of each and every other search criterion available through Create a List. These will help you micro-target your lists in more complex ways.
Each has at least two sections: “What is it” explains what sorts of voters you’ll be able to find using it, and “When should I use it” offers guidance on when to do so.
Addresses
What is it?
Addresses refers to the address(es) on file for specific voters. It allows you to search not only by standard address fields such as Zip Code and Street #, but also by a ton of additional, useful categories.
Users can focus their searches by designating an “Added Since” date to find only recent or older addresses. Source and Type designate where addresses were uploaded from or if they are mailing addresses or voting addresses.
Checking walkable houses can improve your turf cutting immensely - it removes houses that have been marked unreachable from your list. Similarly, checking Geocoded restricts your lists to houses added to VAN’s mapping system.
When should I use it?
This criterion is particularly useful for list-building. By narrowing your list to recently updated addresses, excluding unwalkable houses, and ensuring PO Boxes are excluded, your volunteers and staff will be far less likely to get stuck on a house they can’t find. You can also remove non-Geocoded addresses, which refers to addresses VAN’s database does not have location information for yet (these are updated frequently).
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Age • Registration Date
What is it?
Age and Registration Date refer to information relating to voters’ birthdays and when they last registered to vote. The subcriteria here include options to set age and birthday ranges, sort by Astrological Sign (no, really), and search for ranges of voter registration dates.
When should I use it?
This criterion is useful when searching for voters of a particular generation, or for recently registered voters. Using age ranges, you can find only older or younger voters and tailor your message specifically to them.
Similarly, voter registration date ranges allow you to contact only newly registered voters. You could be the first canvasser they ever speak to as a registered voter!
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API Saved Lists
What is it?
API Saved Lists refer to the lists you’ve created in the various platforms that can connect with VAN, like Hustle. This section should otherwise be blank.
When should I use it?
This section will allow you to keep track of lists you use with external programs.
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Applicant Status
What is it?
Applicant Status refers to the status of people’s voter registration. When the Texas Democratic Party uploads people into the Voter Registration as a part of our registration effort, that will be marked as an Applicant Status.
When should I use it?
Applicant Status can quickly find lists of unregistered voters to canvass during voter registration efforts.
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Custom Contact Fields
What is it?
This search criterion is not currently in use.
When should I use it?
This search criterion is not currently in use.
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What is it?
Email refers to the emails (and the associated voters) that you have collected in your VAN over the course of your campaign. Here, you can search based on when an email was added, what type of email address is on file, and whether voters with email addresses on file have declined to receive emails from your campaign or not.
When should I use it?
Remember that emails in MyVoters are all collected by your campaign - we don’t share emails across all of VAN to reduce the chance our emails flagged as spam. Searching by Email will only include those whose emails your campaign has uploaded into VAN. This can be helpful in finding only the people your campaign is already in contact with.
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Household Sex Counts
What is it?
Household Sex Counts allows you to include only houses with certain numbers of people of either or both sexes living there.
Please note that there are only two options available in the database: male and female. This has to do with how the state chooses to organize its data and we are unable to change it at this time.
When should I use it?
This criterion can help target larger or smaller households, or help zero in on specific demographics.
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Likely Ethnic Subgroup
What is it?
Likely Ethnic Subgroup refers to the ethnic group assigned to voters based on VAN’s best guess. Importantly, this is not self-reported, nor is it necessarily accurate. Likely Ethnic Subgroup instead is calculated using a model and tends to be more accurate in larger searches.
There are three levels for each possibility: High, Medium, and Low. Each level adds an additional layer of accuracy. A High likelihood will generally include voters who have confirmed their ethnic subgroup at some point, while a Low likelihood will generally be a guess based on VAN’s estimation.
When should I use it?
Likely Ethnic Subgroup can help zero in on specific demographic groups to convey a more targeted message.
What if mine is wrong?
Likely Ethnic Subgroup is calculated by VAN using an automated equation that takes its “best guess” based on a series of data points. Because this process is automated, we are unable to change the information listed here. We hope to move towards a more accurate system in the near-future.
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Likely Ethnicity
What is it?
Likely Ethnic Subgroup refers to the ethnicity assigned to voters based on VAN’s best guess. Importantly, this is not self-reported, nor is it necessarily accurate. Likely Ethnicity instead is calculated using a model and, while overwhelmingly accurate, is sometimes off the mark.
There are three levels for each possibility: High, Medium, and Low. Each level adds an additional layer of accuracy. A High likelihood will generally include voters who have confirmed their ethnicity at some point, while a Low likelihood will generally be a guess based on VAN’s estimation.
When should I use it?
This search criterion can help zero in on specific demographic groups to convey a more targeted message.
What if mine is wrong?
Likely Ethnicity is calculated by VAN using an automated equation that takes its “best guess” based on a series of data points. Because this process is automated, we are unable to change the information listed here. We hope to move towards a more accurate system in the near-future.
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Likely Religion
What is it?
Likely Ethnic Subgroup refers to the religion assigned to voters based on VAN’s best guess. Importantly, this is not self-reported, nor is it necessarily accurate. This estimate tends to be based on either demographics and traits or previous voter contacts, and is sometimes incorrect, more so than Likely Ethnic Group and Ethnicity.
When should I use it?
Likely Religion can help with outreach to specific religious communities.
What if mine is wrong?
Religion is calculated by VAN using an automated equation that takes its “best guess” based on a series of data points. Because this process is automated, we are unable to change the information listed here. We hope to move towards a more accurate system in the near-future.
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My Campaign Record
What is it?
My Campaign Record refers to whether or not a voter has a saved record in MyCampaign. These records can refer to yard sign requestees, volunteers, event attendees, and more.
When should I use it?
Using this criterion can help you either focus only on high-propensity supporters or remove them from your lists easily.
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Name
What is it?
Name refers to the first and last names on file for voters.
When should I use it?
Sometimes, the information you have for a voter is limited. You can use Name in addition to other criteria to try to find voters based on whatever information you do have access to. For instance, you know their last name and voting history (which Quick Lookup does not allow you to search by), but nothing for their address.
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Notes
What is it?
Notes refers to the notes added to voters’ profiles by your VAN committee. Notes are entirely local, and you will not see notes added by other people’s campaigns.
When should I use it?
Notes are helpful when you want to keep track of useful information that doesn’t fit elsewhere. Examples could include adding information on voters who need rides to the polls, denoting a particular issue not marked under XCmty Issue Priority (a local issue or bond, for example), or simply recording important parts of conversations had with voters that you want to keep track of for later.
However, we do not recommend using Notes for keeping track of important data. Marking information like canvassed status, do not contact requests, and other issues should be done in Canvass History or Survey Questions.
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Organizing Turfs
What is it?
Organizing Turfs refers to premade turfs for Texas Court of Appeals districts.
When should I use it?
This criterion can help Court of Appeals candidates easily make lists. It should otherwise not be used.
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Phones
What is it?
Phones refers to the phone numbers connected with voters’ VAN accounts, the various attributes associated with them, and the likelihood they are still in service. You can narrow your search by the likelihood the number is a cell phone as well.
Another useful feature in Phones is Phone Quality Scores. These scores, which range from Very High to Very Low, measure the likelihood that a phone number is still in service or has been disconnected or is unavailable. Higher scores mean the phone number is more likely to work, while lower scores mean it has been flagged as likely to no longer work.
Remember, you can view but cannot export cell phone numbers. This is to prevent illegal use of phone numbers for robocalling. Additional information on why is available here. If you need export privileges, submit a help ticket with an explanation.
Additional information about Phones can be found here: VAN FAQ: Phones.
When should I use it?
Phones can help clean up your lists. By restricting lists to certain Phone Quality Scores, you can guarantee your Virtual Phone Banks are composed of working phone numbers.
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Precinct-Level NCEC Data
What is it?
Precinct-Level NCEC Data refers to information provided by the National Committee for an Effective Congress.
When should I use it?
Unless your campaign has been advised to use these for a specific purpose, Precinct-Level NCEC Data should not be used.
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Program Type
What is it?
Program Type refers to voters included in specific outreach programs; specifically, Field-Applicant, Field-Pledge, and Web, and when and by who people were included in these programs
When should I use it?
Unless your campaign has been advised to use these for a specific purpose, Program Type should not be used at this time.
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Race
What is it?
Race refers to the race marked down in voters’ profiles.
Race differs from Likely Ethnicity and Likely Ethnic Subgroup in that it is pulled directly from aggregated data and voter responses and is not calculated as a “best guess” by VAN.
When should I use it?
We do NOT recommend using this section, and instead recommend the Civis 2022 Race Scores. Further, we generally recommend not targeting voter contact based on these scores alone. These modeled predictions are just that - a prediction - and using them carelessly can be both counterproductive and offensive to voters.
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Relationships
What is it?
Relationships refer to the sparingly-used categories assigned to certain voters for categorization purposes.
When should I use it?
Unless your campaign needs to use these for a specific purpose, Relationships should not be used.
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RoboCalls
What is it?
RoboCalls refers to calls made using VAN’s RoboCalls tool, a part of the Campaign Phone Tools package. It can find people called using this system based on date and result.
When should I use it?
If you subscribe to VAN’s RoboCall feature, this criterion can provide a helpful perspective.
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Scores
What is it?
Scores refer to the calculated scores assigned to voters by various sources. A “score” is a number - generally between 0 and 100 - calculated and assigned to voters based on specific criteria.
When should I use it?
Most users will want to use. While TDP is rolling out changes to Scores, we recommend using Targets instead of scores. For more information on our targets visit our targets documentation.
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Self-Reported Demographics
What is it?
Self-Reported Demographics refer to the demographic groups voters have identified themselves as belonging to either to a canvasser or through another public means. You can view the Survey Questions used for this section here: SQs and MSQs Sheet.
This criterion is currently in limited use only - we hope to see its use grow over the coming year!
When should I use it?
For now, this search criterion is not currently in use.
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Source File Sex
What is it?
Source File Sex refers to the sex that voters identify as on the source file used to populate VAN’s database.
Please note that there are only two options available in the database: male and female. This has to do with how the state chooses to organize its data and we are unable to change it at this time.
When should I use it?
This criterion allows you to search by sex.
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Tags
What is it?
This search criterion is no longer in use.
When should I use it?
This search criterion is no longer in use.
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Voter Status and Voter Registration
What is it?
Voter Status and Voter Registration refers to information about when and how a registered voter’s information was uploaded into VAN.
When should I use it?
By default, Registered Active and Suspense are checked. That’s good - that just means voters currently able to vote on Texas’ voter rolls will be included.
One helpful tool is checking the New Voter box. By searching only for New Voter, you can find folks who have only recently gotten involved.
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Voting History
What is it?
Voting History refers to voters’ participation in past General, Primary, and certain off-year Elections. You will first have to specify how you would like to select voters based on their participation. Each is self-explanatory: “Any” will select folks who participated in any selected election, “All” in all selected elections, and so on.
Once an option is selected, you will then be able to check each election to include. If you’d like to further narrow your search, you can specify how each person voted, and for Primaries, you can specify which Primary they participated in.
Special Election data - referring to off-year elections only to fill vacant seats - are not included in this tab. This information is sometimes available by request.
When should I use it?
This criterion is the easiest way to identify people most and least likely to vote based on past participation. You can search folks identified as strong democrats but who have not participated in past elections for turnout, or search reliable voters who may not identify strongly with the Democratic Party for persuasion.