How to get voter records for small towns in Massachusetts
October 21, 2013 10:43 AM Subscribe
I'm working on a personal project mapping political signage across two small towns in Massachusetts. I'd like to compare my personally gathered data with voter records over at least the last few years. Is there any chance that this data is publicly available? Seeing as the project is quite local, I'd like to get data on the scale of households.
I seem to recall getting a Democratic mailer in 2012 showing my household's "voter report card" compared to my next door neighbors. I believe it knew our participation in the last two elections or so. I'd like to have similar data for my own uses, in order to see the extent to which political participation tracks with the appearance of lawn signage. This would just be one portion of a larger project involving demographic data, parcel size and assessed value, etc. Thanks for reading, any help would be greatly appreciated!
I seem to recall getting a Democratic mailer in 2012 showing my household's "voter report card" compared to my next door neighbors. I believe it knew our participation in the last two elections or so. I'd like to have similar data for my own uses, in order to see the extent to which political participation tracks with the appearance of lawn signage. This would just be one portion of a larger project involving demographic data, parcel size and assessed value, etc. Thanks for reading, any help would be greatly appreciated!
Best answer: Voter registrations (going back some years), with names and addresses, are (usually) public records and should be available from whatever level your local election commission operates at (county, township, town, whatever).
Assuming the data is public record wherever you live, however, the faster thing to do to get useful data is to go to one of your county parties (Dem or GOP) and say, "Hey, I'm working on this project for school/personal curiosity/to target a local nonpartisan race/to write a report on the sign ordinance, and I wondered if I could use your voter database to compare signs with registration," or whatever. Both parties have software that provides very nice maps and can slice and dice the data in many different ways (by street, by last name, by party affiliation, by primary participation, whatever).
They might have to check with the state party to make sure it's okay, but generally local parties are pretty generous with that cleaned-up data as long as you're using it for a reasonable purpose. (You might write up a little agreement about how you're using it and how you promise not to use it, if necessary.)
(Signs do track with voter participation, incidentally, and the better-organized county parties have sign-placement databases too, going back as far as two decades. Those are private but someone would probably at least chat with you about sign placement and targeting.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:51 AM on October 21, 2013
Assuming the data is public record wherever you live, however, the faster thing to do to get useful data is to go to one of your county parties (Dem or GOP) and say, "Hey, I'm working on this project for school/personal curiosity/to target a local nonpartisan race/to write a report on the sign ordinance, and I wondered if I could use your voter database to compare signs with registration," or whatever. Both parties have software that provides very nice maps and can slice and dice the data in many different ways (by street, by last name, by party affiliation, by primary participation, whatever).
They might have to check with the state party to make sure it's okay, but generally local parties are pretty generous with that cleaned-up data as long as you're using it for a reasonable purpose. (You might write up a little agreement about how you're using it and how you promise not to use it, if necessary.)
(Signs do track with voter participation, incidentally, and the better-organized county parties have sign-placement databases too, going back as far as two decades. Those are private but someone would probably at least chat with you about sign placement and targeting.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:51 AM on October 21, 2013
Response by poster: Thanks to you both, I'll get in touch with the local parties and the League of Women voters. You've both given me hope that maybe this information isn't as difficult to find as I had thought! Does anyone know if there is similarly fine data for demographics?
posted by taromsn at 12:11 PM on October 21, 2013
posted by taromsn at 12:11 PM on October 21, 2013
Best answer: Demographics are mostly available at the census tract level which sometimes overlaps with the towns and sometimes doesn't. Your voter registration has a very limited amount of data about you. Census has much more specific personal information, but is only available in aggregate. You could ask the MA State library or your local librarian and they should know more specifically what you can and can't get access to. There are also commercial databases that have mashups of some of this (and other) data to make best guesses about demographics but they usually come at a price and aren't really probably useful for what you are looking for.
posted by jessamyn at 2:26 PM on October 21, 2013
posted by jessamyn at 2:26 PM on October 21, 2013
In Ohio, the Secretary of State allows anyone to download voter files by county, district, and more. The files include records of which elections each elector voted in. Voter files should be available to you in MA as well. Contact your local board of elections or Secretary of the Commonwealth.
posted by JackBurden at 9:39 AM on October 22, 2013
posted by JackBurden at 9:39 AM on October 22, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jessamyn at 11:06 AM on October 21, 2013