[Fwd: RE: HAVA Voter Registration data availability]

[Matt Price]

fyi. not sure whether we want the vrdb info for any other purposes?
Aaron, is there a substantial benefit gained by having the full vrdb
info (as opposed to the summaries that most states publish on the web as
either pdf or xls)?

m

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Packard, Ed <Ed.Pa...@sos.alabama.gov>
To: Matt Price <matt....@utoronto.ca>
Cc: Thompson, Adam <Adam.T...@sos.alabama.gov>
Subject: RE: HAVA Voter Registration data availability
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 08:34:22 -0500

Dear Mr. Price ...

Under Alabama state law, individuals to not declare a political party
affiliation when they register to vote. Therefore, the data you seek is
unavailable.

If you need further assistance, please let us know.

--Ed

Ed Packard
Supervisor of Voter Registration
Office of the Secretary of State
State of Alabama
Voice: 334-242-4845
Fax: 334-242-2444

-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Price [mailto:matt....@utoronto.ca]
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 7:18 PM
To: Thompson, Adam; Packard, Ed
Subject: HAVA Voter Registration data availability

Dear Mr. Thompson and Mr. Packard,

I'm currently working on a project for the non-profit
http://www.watchdog.net, a website that promotes government
transparency. Currently, our website helps users find their district and
representative as well as the representative's voting history and
district census information. We would like to augment this service with
more specific data about voter registration history, especially
district-level data on party affiliation.

As you know, this data exists in the state voter registration databases
mandated by HAVA. However, we have not yet been able to find a way to
access it. We would be grateful if you could provide us with either a
web address from which this data can be downloaded directly, or
instructions for ordering copies of it.

We very much appreciate your assistance in this matter.

best Regards,

Matt Price
watchdog.net

--
Matt Price
matt....@utoronto.ca
--
Matt Price
matt....@utoronto.ca

[Aaron Swartz]

Yes, we want the full vrdb info. The statistics are one thing we can
extract, but there's a lot more we can do with the raw data, including
heat maps of where voters are and connecting it up with individual
contribution data and other such data sets.