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Voter File

Information about the Democratic Party of Oregon Voter File.

What is the Voter File?

The voter file is a database containing information on all two million voters in Oregon, including name, residence, mailing address, party, age, and voting history. The data has been enhanced with data purchased from other sources, including phone numbers, address corrections, certain consumer information, precinct voting characteristics. The database also contains historical data about how voters have answered canvassing questions over the years, going back as far as 1998.
Candidates using the Voter File can create lists of voters based on any of the information in the system, and then use that list to ask survey questions, send mailings, make phone calls, or walk door to door. Survey data goes back into the system so it can be used as a criteria for future lists.
The voter file makes it easy for users that work on the same campaign committee to share information with each other, but hide it from workers on other committees.


Gaining Access
Access to the Voter File information is granted to Committees. Committees must

  • be for the benefit of the Democratic Party, its committees, candidates, or endorsed campaigns
  • be Authorized by the DPO or one of the Party committees it has delegated that responsibility to.
  • pay required fees
  • agree to the DPO's Voter File Services agreement

The fee for county committees is covered by an in-kind contribution from the Democratic Party of Oregon. County committees only need to agree to the Technology Services Agreement, which covers proper usage of voter file, bulk email, web site and other technology sharing between the state and county parties.

Access for Candidates

Candidates for office acquire voter file access through a different process. The description of the voter file for candidates is on the dpo web site at http://www.oregondemocrats.org/ under the "Resources" menu. The specific thing that a candidate needs to do to start the process is sign up at http://restricted.dpo.org/campaign/signup.cgi. If local candidates in your county sign up, the county chair will be notified immediately.

Some Important Policies

  • Every individual user needs their own account. With rare exceptions, there should not be any "generic" voter file accounts.
  • County parties may authorize any party officers, including PCPs and Neighborhood organizers, to have accounts on the voter file.
  • County parties may authorize new Voter File Committees to be set up for Democratic candidates for office or for local issue campaigns they endorse, provided the race is entirely within the county's boundaries. (Access for house candidates is through FuturePac; for Senate candidates is through SDLF; and for other races through the state party.)
  • Counties must not provide lists of voters to other organizations without following the process in the Technology Services Agreement.

Updating Information

The basic list of voters and contact information in the voter file is shared among all users. This includes some organizations working through Our Oregon, such as OEA, Basic Rights, NARAL, and OCLV. The data is updated twice on odd years and 4 times in even years following this process:

  • The DPO obtains the full list from the Secretary of State's office. This is usually up-to-date within a few weeks.
  • The DPO does some processing to manage local district information (schools, fire, etc.).
  • The DNC provides phone number matching, address validation, ethnicity, and some other voter attributes.
  • The Voter Activation Network merges the new data with old, preserving vote history and all ID information.
  • The entire process takes about a month.

Local Data Additions

As voters are contacted from the voter file, canvassers learn information which generally goes back into the voter file. There are two kinds of information collected: bad contact information and voter ID information.

Bad contact includes wrong number, disconnected number, wrong address, inaccessible address, deceased. This information is shared among all users of the voter file. If your committee marks a phone number bad, no other voter file user in the state will see that phone number for that voter. If a committee adds a new phone number for a voter, that number will be available to all users.

Note: the voter file also permits you to enter an email address. Email addresses are NOT shared outside of the Committee that entered them.

Voter ID information includes answers to survey questions and "check boxes" for things like Activist, Donor, Lawn Sign, etc. These codes should also be entered into the voter file because it makes them available as criteria for pulling future lists and it preserves them for the future. Voter ID information is always shared among users that are on the same Committee; in some cases it is also shared with other committees as well, and some codes are shared across all users.

Voter file access is granted to candidates contingent on their willingness to put their local data back into the file.

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