Information to gather for precinct targeting

The purpose of targeting is to identify and rank the precincts in your district or county on the basis of three criteria:

The completed analysis will categorize precincts into five categories: Base Republican, High Ticket-splitters, "Aspiring" Republican, Base Democrat and Solid Democrat

If you're a Filpac customer, the cost is free as long as you gather the data necessary to complete the analysis.

(Precinct data is available from the state or local election authority. In most cases it can be downloaded into files readable in Excel or Open Office.)

Here's what we need:

The following precinct vote totals for at least the past two general elections:

* Turnout

This is sometimes called "total number of electors" or "total vote". It represents the number of people in the precinct who took out a ballot (either absentee or in person) and voted.

* Vote totals for Republican candidates

Meeting the following criteria:

1. They must appear on the ballot with their party designation. This would eliminate non-partisan judicial or local candidates.

2. They must appear on everyone's ballot. Presidential and statewide candidates would meet this criteria. if your constituency covers several counties, countywide candidates obviously would not. Legislative or congressional candidates whose districts cover only part of your constituency should be left out.

3. They must be opposed. Skip them if they ran without opposition.

* Helpful information, if it's available:

Voter Registration at the time of the election. This will determine the turnout rate.

Significant races and issues. If you're running in a Democrat constituency, collect the precinct totals for other Republicans who have won there before. if there was an issue on the ballot, such as a tax or social issue, that might foretell voters' response to a limited-government message, be sure to include it.

* Precinct changes

The analysis will be based on the current precinct scheme, which might have been changed. Usually this involves merging precincts. So if today's Precinct D was last year's Precincts D and E, record the sum of those two precincts for past elections. If precincts have been split, or if precinct boundaries have been changed, call us and we'll come up with a solution.

Helpful Hint: You can create a list of precincts from your Filpac system. Go to Data File Maintenance->Support Codes->Precincts. Assuming your voter file is current, the precinct list will be current. You can then create, label and fill the appropriate columns.

Send us the completed spreadsheet and we'll apply the categories, ranking and calculations. Then we'll label each precinct in your Filpac system so you can generate reports and lists on the basis of each precinct's targeting status. Please be mindful that the accuracy of the targeting is only as good as the veracity of the data you gather, so please devote to this task the care and diligence commensurate with a task so crucial to your campaign.