Political operatives scramble to up their post-redistricting data game before midterm elections

A late start to the census due to COVID-19 in tandem with long and drawn-out redistricting scuffles across the country have rendered many key voter databases rife with outdated information about the districts in which voters live, posing problems for candidates seeking to spend campaign dollars to target voters effectively.

“I would say we’re at least a year behind than where we typically would be at this point in the cycle. Usually, the lines would be released in the odd year in between. In this case, ’20 would have been 2021 when the districts would have been released,” Paul Westcott, executive vice president of sales and marketing at nonpartisan political data provider L2 Data, told the Washington Examiner.

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Westcott stressed that L2 is ahead of the competition, particularly political parties, but emphasized the sector as a whole has had to contend with delays in redistricting. In past cycles, firms had almost a year of additional time to reset their maps and clean up their databases, but this cycle has been extended due to the pandemic and litigation prompting constant upheaval in map enactments.

The political databases provide canvassers and party officials with information such as emails, phone numbers, projections of prospective voters’ political leanings, and more. This information typically derives from data found in voter files, national consumer databases, and advanced modeling. All of this is used to ensure campaigns are focusing their money and resources on targeting campaigns.

“From a campaign perspective, we’re mailing based on the voter list, or targeting people with digital ads based on the voter list,” Matt Dole, a Republican campaign consultant at Communications Counsel in Ohio, told the Washington Examiner. “If the voter list isn’t up to date, then we’re spending money that we don’t need to spend. It’s inefficient for the campaigns.”

Dole works with several voter databases and has encountered a lot of ease of use problems with databases lately. He has spent hours manually sifting through them to ensure he was finding people located in the districts in which he was doing campaign work. His home state of Ohio has been subject to one of the most chaotic redistricting skirmishes in the country, with a steady stream of maps getting enacted by the state and then quashed in court.

“It’s really not up to date. Now, if I were to go in and do it manually, I could see it,” he explained. “And of course, if you didn’t do that process, if you didn’t take the time and invest the energy into that, your only option was then to advertise in an inefficient way to reach people who wouldn’t necessarily be in the district.”

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Expectations from clients have risen as the technology has gotten more advanced, Jon Black, CEO of a company that provides voter and electoral data to conservative campaigns, told the Washington Examiner.

“I think the expectation from the politicos, the candidates, consultants, that this stuff is available so quickly is actually much higher. I think they expect things to turn around at a much greater clip than in, say, 2012,” the Data Trust executive said. “It’s been obviously a unique challenge.“

Updating the databases is a continuous process, according to industry experts. Data consultant firms are constantly mulling through data to ensure they have the most accurate information on file. When new maps come in, they typically take a shapefile, a format for geographic information system software, or other information localities provide to reconfigure their systems and ensure voters are sorted into the proper districts. Sometimes, they even preempt releases of lines to ensure speedy updates.

Advances in technology have helped data companies adjust their systems much more quickly than in prior redistricting cycles. Companies can turn things around within days of receiving new apportionment information.

But they also have less time to audit their updated district overlays than in prior cycles, depending on the state.

“We’ve been doing this for 30 years. We’re just reaching for that. It’s just more feasible, more powerful. With more powerful computers, [we] have more ability to manipulate large quantities of data. Provided these scenarios, it’s a lot easier to draw lines,” John Phillips, CEO of Aristotle, told the Washington Examiner.

“Voter databases that are prepared and maintained by a company such as Aristotle become more valuable because we have the ability to overlay new district lines, potential new district campaigns, constituent communication casework even before the final lines are agreed to,” he added.

Crunched time and apportionment uncertainty increase the risk of “streets getting assigned wrong and people voting in the wrong district,“ Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services, told the Washington Examiner. His company helps states and precincts get their voter registration systems reconfigured after redistricting.

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The apportionment melees have also had ripple effects on localities’ databases, with government officials responsible for carrying out elections uncertain of the accuracy of their voter rolls.

“You get caught in circumstances where even the state law can’t be followed because you don’t have the data, and so you end up in a catch-22 kind of circumstance,” Brace said. “The only thing you can do is the best of your capability and figure that, ‘Well, somebody’s gonna sue us anyway. So, let’s make the best one we can give of what we have.’”

Despite the roadblocks, the problem will largely be ironed out before the midterm elections, provided there are no more surprises on the redistricting front, a handful of industry experts told the Washington Examiner.