Reaching Voters On The Ground
Understanding Voting Patterns
How many votes do I need? Learn how to calculate
In this guide, we’ll explore how analysing electoral voting data can help you set and achieve your campaign goals – whether that’s winning an election, increasing a candidate’s visibility, or boosting voter turnout. We’ll cover methods for calculating your voting targets and reliable sources from which to obtain data.
Set your campaign goal
Before you start analysing voting data, it’s essential to clearly define your campaign goals. Some examples include:
Winning an election
Securing the highest number of votes to ensure victory.
Example: The Red Party is competing against the Blue Party and the Orange Party. To win, it needs to obtain the highest number of votes.
Increasing a candidate’s visibility
Raising public recognition and support for the candidate, regardless of the final electoral outcome.
Example: The Purple Party is new to the electoral landscape and knows it doesn’t have a real chance of winning. For this reason, it decided to focus its campaign on getting more people to recognise it, making it more competitive in the next election.
Increasing voter turnout
Encouraging civic participation by promoting voting and civic awareness.
Example: To keep its electoral registration, the Yellow Party needs to obtain 10% of the votes in the election. Since 1,000 people vote in the district, this equals 100 people.
Calculate your vote target
Before you begin, it’s important to understand the basic concepts of electoral analysis.
Voter turnout:
This is the percentage of people who take part in an election. It’s calculated by dividing the number of voters by the number of people eligible to vote under the electoral rules.
Electoral roll (nominal list):
In Mexico, the nominal list is the electoral register that includes the names and photographs of all Mexican citizens who are registered and eligible to vote in an election.
Votes cast:
These are all the votes cast in an election. The total number may include blank votes, null votes, and valid votes.
Valid votes:
These are the votes that are considered valid for determining the election result. In some electoral systems, there are specific requirements for a vote to be considered valid.
Simple majority:
This is when a candidate or political party receives more votes than any other candidate or party. In some electoral systems, a simple majority is enough to win an election.
Methods to calculate the votes needed to win an election
In general, vote calculations depend on the country’s specific electoral rules. However, the most common rule is the simple majority. Below are two methods to calculate the number of votes needed to win this type of election.
For either method, the first step is to estimate how many voters are expected to participate. To do this, multiply the turnout rate from the most comparable previous election by the nominal list for your election.
It’s very important to always use data that’s comparable to your election. For example, in Mexico, deputies are elected every three years. However, when elections coincide with the presidential race, turnout rates are usually higher. So, if you’re calculating turnout for a 2024 legislative election, it’ll likely be more accurate to use the turnout rate from 2018 rather than 2021.
Elector-based method
This method involves estimating how many voters are expected to vote and then calculating the number of votes needed to win based on that figure. To apply this method, follow these steps:
- Identify the percentage of voters who participated in the last three elections.
2. Calculate the expected average turnout.
3. Multiply the average percentage by the number of registered voters and add 1.
Example:
Let’s imagine we’re analysing the election involving the Red, Blue, and Orange parties mentioned earlier. The district has 100,000 registered voters, and turnout in the last three elections was 36%, 33%, and 30%. Let’s assume the number of registered voters stayed the same in all three elections. Using this method, you’d need around 33,000 votes to win.
- Number of voters expected to vote in the election: 36%, 33%, 30%
- Calculate the average voter turnout in the last three relevant elections: (36 + 33 + 30) / 3 = 33%
- Multiply the average percentage by the number of voters: 100,000 * 33% = 33,000
Historical voting method
This method looks at results from previous elections in the same electoral territory to estimate how many votes you’ll need to win. To apply it, follow these steps:
- Identify the results of the most recent elections for the same type of position.
2. Calculate the average percentage of votes won by the winning candidate in the last three relevant elections.
3. Multiply that average by the expected number of voters in the next elections.
Example:
Continuing with our previous example, imagine that in the last three elections the winning candidate received 41%, 37%, and 35% of the vote. The average of these results is about 37.7%. From the earlier calculation, we know that expected turnout is around 33% of 100,000 registered voters, which means roughly 33,000 voters are expected to participate. Applying the historical voting method, you’d need about 37.7% of those 33,000 votes, around 12,400 votes (plus one) to win the election under this method.
- Identify the results of the last election in the same election: 41%, 37%, 35%
- Calculate the average of the votes obtained by the winning candidate in the last three relevant elections: (41 + 37 + 35) / 3 = 37.6%
- Multiply the average obtained by the expected number of voters: 37.6% * 33,000 = 12,408
As we can see, this second method produces a much smaller number. That’s because it takes into account the fact that votes are usually split among several candidates.That said, this method can’t be used when historical data isn’t relevant for the election you’re preparing for. Some common situations include:
- Redistricting and precinct changes. When redistricting or precinct reconfiguration happens, historical data often changes. It’s possible to make estimates if there was redistricting but no precinct reconfiguration, using past results from the sections that now make up the district. However, these estimates are less reliable.
- Changes in the number of relevant candidates. If an election usually has three candidates, but in your upcoming race two of them form an alliance and only two contenders remain, historical percentages no longer apply. In this case, it’s better to use the number of voters method.
Information sources and tools
To carry out an effective voting analysis, it’s essential to rely on trustworthy electoral data and the right analytical tools. Find the best source for your country, like the INE Election Statistics Consultation System.
Mapping Your Electoral Territory
Surveying the territory for your campaign
Geo-electoral analysis is a key tool in political campaigns in Mexico, as it helps you understand population demographics; basically, where people are located across the territory based on factors like age, sex, and socioeconomic level. This content explains the basic concepts of the Mexican electoral system and introduces INEGI’s GAIA tool for analyzing population statistics.
Basic concepts of geo-electoral analysis
Although electoral rules vary across the countries (check what applies to yours), most elections can generally be grouped into three levels:
Federal level:
The presidential election takes place nationwide; elections for senators are held at the state level; and elections for deputies are conducted by federal electoral district.
State level:
Each state holds elections to choose the governor statewide, as well as elections to choose deputies by state electoral district.
Municipal level:
Each municipality holds elections to choose the mayor.
An electoral district is the basic unit of political representation in the country and is made up of electoral sections.
An electoral section is the smallest territorial electoral division. Each section has an assigned number, a specific geographic location, and a set number of polling stations, depending on how many registered voters live in that area.
DATA SOURCE
Although there are multiple sources of information on population demographics at the national, state, and municipal levels, there’s only one public source with demographic data at the district and section levels: GAIA. It’s available here. To access district- and section-level information, you need to click on the tab “Census statistics at geo-electoral scales.” This is a Mexican platform, but you can probably find similar information sources specific to your country.
With these tools, you can explore and download statistics for your section or district. As a general recommendation, for any election it’s important to understand the geographic distribution of:
Men and women
Population groups, especially minorities, young people and older adults
Education levels
Income levels
Number of households
Population density
This kind of data helps you see the territory more clearly and make smarter campaign decisions.
What data should I analyze?
The most important data for you will depend on your electoral goal, your campaign profile, your resources, and your target voters. For example, if you’re running in the election for the 10th district seat in Jalisco and you’ve identified that you need to win the vote of young people aged 18 to 23, some of the key data you’ll need to look at might include:
Age
Age is a key factor in understanding this demographic group and how they relate to politics. You should analyze the age distribution in the municipality of Zapopan to see whether there’s a large number of people between 18 and 23 years old.
Sex
Sex also matters, since there can be significant differences in voting behavior between young men and young women.
Education level:
Education level can also influence young people’s voting behavior. You could analyze how many young people have higher education and how that correlates with participation in municipal elections.
Marital status:
You could look at how many young people in this age group are single, married, divorced, or widowed. This can help you understand how their personal circumstances might influence their voting behavior.
Income
Analyzing income levels among young people in this group can help you understand their needs and concerns, which may shape how they vote.
Employment status:
Looking at whether young people are working or not can also be relevant, since those who work may have different needs and concerns compared to those who don’t.
Use of social media:
Finally, you can analyze social media use within this demographic. Young people often rely on social media for information and to stay connected with friends and family, so you could design a campaign strategy that focuses on social platforms to reach them more effectively.
Territorial Outreach Strategies
Surveying the territory for your campaign
In an electoral campaign, territorial outreach is crucial to reach voters and persuade them to support your candidacy. One of the most common and effective tactics is canvassing. In this guide, we’ll show you how to plan your canvassing actions effectively.
Canvassing
Canvassing is an electoral campaign strategy that involves direct contact with voters, usually through door-to-door visits, conversations in public spaces, or phone calls. The goal is to inform voters about a candidate or a cause, present the ideas, persuade them to support that candidate or cause, and motivate them to vote.
Advantages
- Personal connection: Direct contact can create a personal connection between voters and the campaign, which can increase the likelihood that voters will support a candidate or a cause.
- Direct information: It allows the campaign to share information directly about a candidate or a cause, which can help counter misinformation or misunderstandings.
- Voter identification: It helps identify voters who support a candidate or a cause, which can be very useful for voter mobilization efforts on Election Day (remember to always get people’s contact information to provide updates on the campaign)
Disadvantages
- Resource-intensive: Canvassing can be costly and time-consuming, since it requires a lot of hands-on work.
- Negative reactions: Some voters may see canvassing as an invasion of their privacy, which can backfire.
- Variable effectiveness: The effectiveness of canvassing can vary depending on several factors, including the quality of the interaction and the broader political climate.
Tip: Make sure you have all volunteers participate in a training session presenting best practices and narratives for the approach beforehand (try to get someone who’s done it successfully before to facilitate).
Canvassing can be done at any point during an electoral campaign, but it’s especially effective during the voter mobilization phase, which usually takes place in the weeks and days leading up to Election Day. However, canvassing shouldn’t be carried out on Election Day itself in certain jurisdictions, due to laws that prohibit campaigning within a specific radius of polling stations.
Persuasion rate
Imagine you’re running in an election where your main campaign tactic is canvassing. You know you need 3,000 votes to win, and the campaign lasts 60 days. How many people do you need to contact to get elected? The answer depends on your persuasion rate.
The persuasion rate is the number of people you convince to vote for you when you talk to them. A persuasion rate of 40% means that if you talk to 10 people, 4 of them will vote for you.
There’s no simple way to calculate a persuasion rate. One straightforward method is to send your entire team out into the field for one week and ask them to record:
- how many people they contacted, and
- how many people reacted very positively or said they would vote for you.
At the end of the week, divide the number of positive responses by the total number of contacts. The result will be your persuasion rate.
Canvassing plan
To design your canvassing plan, you can start by assuming a low persuasion rate (10% or 20%) and then adjust it according to the reality as the campaign progresses. Let’s build a canvassing plan for our imaginary example.
If you need 3,000 votes to win and your persuasion rate is 20%, you can use a simple calculation to estimate your target number of contacts. That gives you a total of 15,000 required contacts (X = 3,000 * 100 / 20 = 15,000).
If we divide our contact target — 15,000 — by the 60 days of the campaign, we see that we need to contact 250 people per day in order to win.
This number, in turn, helps us calculate how many people we need doing canvassing on the streets (field organizers or volunteers). Let’s assume that each canvasser can talk to 6 people per hour. If the daily shift is 6 hours long, each canvasser will speak with 36 people per day (6 people × 6 hours). Since we need 250 daily contacts, we’ll need at least 7 canvassers working 6 hours every day (250 contacts divided by 36 contacts per canvasser).
Of course, these numbers will vary depending on weather conditions, energy levels, and campaign events, but they’re very useful for setting clear contact goals.
To recap, the steps to build a canvassing plan are:
First, calculate the number of contacts you need to win the election by multiplying the votes you need by 100 and dividing the result by your persuasion rate.
Second, define the length of the canvassing shifts and the number of contacts each canvasser can make per hour. Multiply these two numbers to get the total contacts per canvasser per shift.
Third, divide the number of daily contacts needed by the number of contacts per canvasser per shift to calculate the minimum number of canvassers required on the ground each day.
Call volunteers into action, starting with a briefing meeting where you should present this strategy and provide them with all assets needed to start.
Final notes
Canvassing is usually the most effective tactic for persuading people, but it also requires a significant logistical effort. In general, the fewer voters there are in an election, the more important canvassing becomes, because every single conversation can change the outcome. When there are many voters, social media and mass media tend to be a better tactical choice.