What geographies do I have access to in VAN?
- Most precinct-based voting districts (e.g., Congressional, State House/Senate, County) are pre-defined in VAN because we get this information after a voter file update
- Smaller districts (e.g., local, non-partisan) are typically are made up of portions of precincts
- Because VAN only allows for permissions at the precinct level, we are forced to give your campaign permission to access voter data for entire precincts, rather than just the portion in your jurisdiction. This means that you gain access to data for voters within your voting district, as well as voters outside your district.
Why do I need to limit my data further if I have what I need?
- Some local non-partisan districts cover areas that split precincts. As said above, VAN forces us to permission you access to data for the entire precinct. Where this is the case, you’ll want to exercise care to only target the portion of precincts within your voting district.
- There is no benefit in talking to voters that cannot vote in your race. It would be a waste of your campaign’s time and resources to interact with voters outside of your district. Because of this we want to limit the voters.
How do I narrow my list only to these voters?
- The first step of your list should limit to only this list using the “My Saved Lists” row. (Do not upload this data to an activist code or survey question.)
- You can and should also make a user group with all the users that will need to use this data list.
- On the VAN homepage, go to the Administrative menu, click on “Users/Committees”, and select “User Groups”.
- On the next screen, click “Add New User Group” on the top right.
- Create a name and choose your committee from the drop down menu.
- After clicking to the next screen, choose the VAN users you want to have access to your data list.
- Choose the folder with your data for them to access.
- If you want other users to be able to save into this folder, then you need to edit the folder and mark the checkbox to allow users to save into this folder.