Hi Michigan VAN Users,
Welcome to the dog days of summer, with heat indexes in the 90s, humidity as thick as porridge, and regular thunderstorms to terrify the MDP office dog. We hope you’re all staying cool and dry. With the August 3rd election now behind us, we wanted to provide a couple large VAN updates for you.
Vote History - August 2021
We will be adding August 2021 vote history to VAN as soon as we get it from the Secretary of State. It takes a few weeks for them to collect and process this information from all of Michigan’s municipalities, so we anticipate this happening with our September Voter File update the first week of September.
We know interest is high and we will send an update email as soon as we get this information loaded.
Likely Party in Michigan VAN
We have removed VAN’s version of likely party from Votebuilder because we have released an updated version of Michigan Likely Party Targets that are more comprehensive, flexible, and applicable in Michigan. If you missed our webinar about this switch, you can check out the slides here: https://michigandems.freshdesk.com/a/solutions/articles/66000491470
Create a List
Michigan Likely Party is available in the targets section of create a list for voter outreach. VAN Targets use “OR” logic, so if you select “Strong Democrat” and “Lean Democrat,” your list will include people who are Strong Democrats and also people who are Lean Democrats. To combine likely party with other targets (Millennial Democrats), use multiple steps in your search (Step 1: Democrats, Step 2: Narrow to Millennials).
Person Records
These targets will also be visible as a badge on voter profiles, and under the targets section of individual voter records.
Report Formats
We’ve updated all MDP report formats that used VAN’s version of Likely Party to reflect the new MI Likely Party Targets. Depending on the report format, MI Likely Party Targets will display as either a two character shortcode like the old Likely Party, or longer text.
Short code version (SD, LD, I, LR, SR, ND):
Medium code version (1. Strong Dem, etc.):
miniVAN Formats
VAN just straight up hasn’t done this yet.
Counts and Crosstabs
Michigan Likely Party is available in Counts and Crosstabs to run analysis on your district. Unlike the old version of Likely Party, which was stored under “Data Field,” the new version is stored under the “Targets” section of Counts and Crosstabs.
 
And with that, have a lovely rest of your week! We'll check in again when we have vote history from August available in VAN.
All the best,
The MDP Data Team | 