ATTACHMENT 02 - DRAFT VOTER REGISTRATION DATA TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS.pdf

ATTACHMENT 02

DRAFT VOTER REGISTRATION DATA TECHNICAL

REQUIREMENTS

NOTE: This document represents the draft Technical Requirements as provided by the Decennial Directorate. This document does NOT represent a draft or formal Request for

Proposal (RFP).

1. BACKGROUND

The Census Bureau conducts research and production work using administrative records data to enhance numerous programs and products. The Census Bureau enters into agreements with data providers, including federal, state, and private entities, to acquire data files. These data are used to support planning and conducting future decennial censuses, current surveys such as the American Community Survey (ACS), and other Census Bureau demographic and economic research and production work. The Census Bureau will use the data acquired in the contract to continue to carry out work that is underway as well as continue our research to find new uses for the data we obtain.

In support of the USCB’s mission, the Economic Reimbursable Surveys Division (ERD) is responsible for acquiring and maintaining a broad range of administrative records datasets, with the express purpose of enhancing the value of data from household surveys and censuses, resulting in reduction of respondent burden, validation and data collection costs. In addition, the USCB is assessing the capability of these data products to accurately predict, and potentially correct for, nonresponse in our demographic surveys and censuses.

Decennial census efforts to count the population rely primarily on methods to encourage people to self-respond, followed by in-person interviewing for nonresponding households. To increase efficiency and reduce costs, the 2020 Census leveraged administrative data to enhance respondent-provided information, validate respondent submissions, and to reduce in-person field follow up visits. The 2030 Census will continue these 2020 Census efficiencies while also exploring additional administrative data sources and uses to further streamline census data collection and minimize respondent burden.

To further these efficiencies, the Demographic Research team will evaluate voter registration and limited voter behavior data for its potential to improve activities related to survey and census data collection procedures. In addition, the team will assess the capability of these data products to accurately predict, and potentially correct for, nonresponse in our demographic surveys and censuses.

2. TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

IMPORTANT: The USCB cannot ingest voter activity data that may uncover a voter’s party affiliation, political preference, political ideology or specific candidate or party selections made during voting. As a result, USCB cannot ingest voter activity data that reports on voting in individual primaries, individual special elections, exit-polls, or other individual elections that occur in years other than the general election. If these data elements exist in the commercial dataset they MUST be removed prior to delivery to the Census Bureau.

The contractor shall provide the Census Bureau with complete and accurate voter registration data files (current and historical years) as defined below. The contractor shall provide a data dictionary along with the delivery of the voter registration data files.

2.1 - The contractor shall provide voter registration data for the data elements outlined below:

1. Unique Voter ID(s) fields These fields should include any unique voter ID information provided by the state and/or municipality, voter ID created by the vendor, legacy voter ID information created by the vendor that allows linking movers across states. If there are multiple unique vote ID measures, the vendors should include each type in a distinct field and provide written information describing each unique vote ID.

2. File Update Information

a. Date of most recent record access/file pull from municipality for a unique voter

ID.

b. Date of most recent update (e.g., change) to the record of a unique voter ID.

c. Date of first observation of unique voter ID at the current registration address.

These fields should help the Census know the date when a record for a particular voter ID is updated, the first time the record for a particular voter appeared on a given state file, and how to create an accurate voter registration location history by date.

3. Voter Name Information:

a. First Name

b. Middle Name

c. Last Name

d. Suffix

4. Voter Demographic Characteristics

a. Voter Gender

b. Voter Age

c. Voter Birthdate

d. Voter Birthdate Confidence or Quality Score, if exists

e. Voter Place of Birth

f. Voter Race Category

g. Voter Race Confidence or Quality Score, if exists

h. Voter Ethnicity Category

i. Voter Ethnicity Confidence or Quality Score, if exists

j. Voter Languages Spoken (in addition to English)

k. Voter Marital Status

5. Voter Current Residence Address Information

a. House Number

b. Prefix Direction

c. Street Name

d. Designator/ Street Type

e. Suffix Direction

f. Apartment/Unit Number/Type

g. City

h. State

i. ZIP

j. ZIP+4

k. FIPS State/County

l. Indicator if Address Changed Counties (Prior FIPS County and Date of Change)

m. Property Acreage/Square Footage (Land)

n. Property Square Footage (Home or Livable Space)

o. Address Housing Unit Density

p. Family ID or some measure of which individuals in a household belong to the same family (e.g., unrelated roommates would have different family IDs in the same household, while related grandparents, parents, and children at the same address would have the same family ID)

q. Family Person Count (count of individuals, including those under 18 and/or not registered to vote) at the residence address who belong to the same Family ID

6. Voter Current Mailing Address Information

a. House Number

b. Prefix Direction

c. Street Name

d. Designator/Street Type

e. Suffix Direction

f. Apartment/Unit Number/Type

g. City

h. State

i. ZIP

j. ZIP+4

k. Property Acreage/Square Footage (Land)

l. Property Square Footage (Home or Livable Space)

m. Address Housing Unit Density

7. Voter Telephone Contact Information

a. Landline Area Code

b. Landline 7 Digit

c. Landline Confidence or Quality Score

d. Cell Phone Area Code

e. Cell Phone 7 Digit

f. Cell Phone Confidence or Quality Score

g. Indicator for Cell Phone Only Household

8. Voter District Information Local issues drive many special and local elections that could feed into the voter performance measure defined below. As a result, we are interested in a broad range of municipality information:

a. U.S. Congressional District

b. State Senate District

c. State House District

d. Information about Prior U.S. Congressional District (if changed since last general election), including date of change, prior district ID

e. Information about Prior State Senate District (if changed since last general election), including date of change, prior district ID

f. Prior State Senate District (if address reclassified since last general)

g. Flag if Address Changed State Senate District since last general

h. Prior State House District (if address reclassified since last general)

i. Flag if Address Changed State House District since last general

j. Prior State Legislative District (if address reclassified since last general)

k. Flag if Address Changed State Legislative District since last general l. City

m. City Ward/District

n. City Mayoral District

o. Town District

p. Town Ward

q. Town Council

r. Village

s. Village Ward

t. Township

u. Township Ward

v. Borough

w. Borough Ward

x. Hamlet/Community Area

y. City School District

z. Board of Education District aa. Board of Education Subdistrict bb. School

Board District cc. School District dd. Community College District ee. Fire Services District ff. Hospital Services District gg. Municipal Utility District hh.

Municipal Utility Subdistrict ii. Municipal Water District

jj. Municipal Water Subdistrict

9. Voter Behavior Indicators* (where YYYY = Year)

a. Indicator if Registered for <YYYY> General Election

b. Indicator if Voted in <YYYY> General Election

c. Indicator if Voted Early in <YYYY> General Election

d. Indicator if Voted Absentee/by Mail in <YYYY> General Election

10. Voter Performance Summary Metric* (where yyyy is the first year in a four-year cycle and YYYY = general election years) .

a. Voter Performance Summary Metric yyyy_YYYY

b. Percentage of all elections voted in by voter between 12/01/yyyy –

11/30/YYYY

c. Measure of voter performance (e.g percentage of elections voter has voted in)

d. Other Information

11. Voter Social Security Number (if available)

2.2 - The contractor shall report missing values, for a particular data element, (defined by the vendor, could be a blank, an NR, etc.) in a way that is easily differentiable from any potentially valid value on the file, and should be noted in the data dictionary. The contractor shall not fill a data element with a zero if the information was not available from one of their sources, unless it was accompanied by a flag that flagged a missing/not reported value.

2.3 - The contractor shall report which fields and values within fields that are imputed by the contractor, rather than extracted from the contractor’s source providers, in a way that is easily differentiable from any value extracted from the contractor’s source providers and should be noted in the data dictionary. The contractor shall not fill a data element with a predicted value based on their data processing unless it is in a separate field or is flagged as an imputed value.

2.4 - If additional Voter Registration Data Fields are identified and determined to be beneficial to the Government’s analysis, the Government reserves the right to request additional data fields through a bilateral contract modification.

2.5 - The contractor shall deliver a data dictionary or description specifying ranges of valid values, labels, contents, format, and structure of the data files and the relationship between the data items. The data dictionary shall denote how often each value for each variable is populated along with any other relevant information. The data dictionary shall describe the following data fields:

a. Variable Name

b. Variable Description

c. Formats- dated, implied decimas, etc. (where applicable)

d. Maximum length

e. Start column (fixed length only)

f. Valid values (where applicable)

g. Variable Type (i.e., character, date, integer, float)

2.6 - The contractor shall deliver the most current information in each voter registration data file delivery.

2.7 - The contractor shall provide a schedule with the dates the Census Bureau should expect the scheduled updates to the voter registration data files.

2.8 - The contractor shall provide detailed information on temporal coverage, including:

a. State-level availability of voter registration/select voter activity data from 2014current.

b. Contextual information about changes in the availability of fields from 2014current (e.g., if a particular address field did not appear on the file until 2015, that should be noted)

c. Contextual information about any breaks in the updates to voter registration/select voter activity data (e.g., if a state did not provide any data, was missing fields, etc., for the year of 2015, that should be noted)

2.9 -The contractor shall deliver the commercial data file in a single fixed-length ACSII format via a secure file transfer protocol (SFTP). The Census Bureau has a system in place to receive this type of file transfer.

2.10 - The Contractor shall provide technical support regarding file structure and delivery, file contents and completeness, and data consistency over time. The contractor shall work to resolve technical issues within 48 business hours of being notified.

Note: The Census Bureau will use person data elements, such as SSN, First/Middle/Last Name, Date of Birth, and address data elements to link the commercial data to existing Census records and assign a Person Identification Key (PIK). PIK rates is one evaluation method used to evaluate the sample data.

3. DELIVERABLES AND WORK PRODUCTS

The following chart provides a list and schedule of milestones/deliverables. The listed milestones/deliverables are considered to be essential to the successful completion of stated contract requirements. Upon submission, all deliverables become the property of the Government.

Item No.

Milestone (M) / Deliverable (D)

1 Delivery of current year voter registration data files with updated to include present data (2023 or most recent file) for 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Island Areas (D)

2 Data Dictionary corresponding to current year data files (2023 or most recent file) for 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Island Areas (D)

3 Delivery of historical data files (back to 2014) for 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Island Areas (D)

4 Data dictionary corresponding to historical data files (back to 2014) for 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Island Areas (D)

5 Technical Support (D)

DESCRIPTION OF DELIVERABLES

1. Current Year Data Files (Annual) The contractor shall provide voter registration data files with updates for the data items outlined in section C.3, Performance Work Statement, for the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Island Areas within 20 calendar days after contract award. The data should be provided as a delimited text file or a non-delimited fixed length text file (ASCII). The Census ingest team will need to know the delimiter. The data will be transferred via Managed File Transfer (MFT).

2. Data Dictionary corresponding to current year data files The contractor shall provide a data dictionary for the corresponding yearly data files specifying ranges of valid values, labels, contents, format, and structure of the data files and the relationship between the data items. The data dictionary shall describe the following data fields:

a. Variable Name

b. Variable Description

c. Formats- dated, implied decimas, etc. (where applicable)

d. Maximum length

e. Start column (fixed length only)

3. Historical Data Files (back to 2024) The contractor shall provide voter registration historical data files for the data items outlined in section C.3, Performance Work Statement, for the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Island Areas for years 2024 through 2025 within 20 calendar days after contract award.

The data should be provided as a delimited text file or a non-delimited fixed length text file

(ASCII). The Census ingest team will need to know the delimiter. The data will be transferred via Managed File Transfer (MFT).

4. Data Dictionary corresponding to historical data files The contractor shall provide a data dictionary for the corresponding historical data files specifying ranges of valid values, labels, contents, format, and structure of the data files and the relationship between the data items. The data dictionary shall describe the following data fields: a. Variable Name

b. Variable Description

c. Formats- dated, implied decimas, etc. (where applicable)

d. Maximum length

e. Start column (fixed length only)

5. Technical Support The contractor shall work to resolve technical issues within the outlined timeframe.