Voter Action Network (VAN)
Suite of Tools

Gentle reader ;-)

VAN is the Voter Action Network, a product of NGPVAN (www.ngpvan.com) which has a number of solutions and products (including Mobilize, VoteBuilder, MiniVAN, Virtual Phone Bank, Call Time, etc) that get used regularly in New York campaigns for Democratic candidates and causes. 

VoteBuilder is a national online database administered by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in partnership with the state party. Campaigns across the country utilize VoteBuilder at every level to decide who to talk to, track canvassing data, recruit volunteers, and much more!

The New York State Democrats (www.nydems.org) provide access to county Democratic Committees to VoteBuilder, what many people speak of when they say "VAN". Please see the NYDems web page at https://www.nydems.org/action/votebuilder. Requests for campaign and committee access may be submitted through the NYDems web page. If a county has lost access to their account (for example, if the previous county data administrator has lost their password or email, moved or become unavailable), they (the county dem chair), too, can use the web page to request to regain access). 

The State party doesn't (seem to) charge county committees for this use of VAN which seems intended to support county-wide and local campaigns, as well as to support state and national campaigns at the local county-and-below level.

Conventional uses of VAN in rural counties

This brief survey is based on my own limited observations. Your mileage may vary.

Particular strengths VAN has over BOE-supplied voter lists

• Phone numbers (up-to-date, less likely to be out-of-service)

County Board of Election offices can generally provide campaigns with lists of registered voters that include information such as the voter name, voting address, mailing address (if different), age, party registration, sex, and a phone number or email address (if supplied at the time the person registered to vote).

However, I would observe that people change their phone numbers far more frequently than they bother to update their BOE registration information. Nevermind their email addresses (if they supplied one to the BOE to begin with).

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) pays to obtain up-to-date phone numbers from telephone companies that helps identify whether the phone numbers are likely to be cell phones (and so, accessible for texting), and so forth. VAN is updated regularly with phone numbers for voters, and maintains enough of a history to make it possible to provide you with a far better chance of actually having a working phone number for a voter than the BOE lists can provide.

So, if you'll be calling voters, VAN can provide likely better phone numbers to use.

Identify, contact, recruit potential committee members, donors, volunteers, candidates

• Voting history / propensity

Look at the overall voting history of your voters - 

• how many have literally never voted?

• how many never, ever fail to vote - they vote in EVERY General Election

• how many even vote in every Primary election?

• how many vote sporadically - sometimes yes, sometime no? 

Consider approaching the folks who ALWAYS vote to join your committee, to volunteer, or donate, or attend an event - you know they're engaged and they come out when it counts! Lean into that!

Consider approaching the folks who are sporadic to make a special effort to vote when turnout is especially important.

Consider reaching out to the registered voters who never vote - to discuss why they don't, and see if they need encouragement or special messaging to get them more involved.

Prioritize your messaging - postcards, canvassing, literature drops, social media and advertising outreach - keeping voting propensity in mind as to what messages you're delivering to each such grouping.

• Household Party Counts

The idea here is that you may be looking for households with multiple registered Democrats living there 

• perhaps you are creating a list of households to approach as you are petitioning for yourself to be a county committee member representing your election district - in the hopes you can collect multiple petition signatures at one address location;

• perhaps you are looking for voters registered as Republicans or Conservatives that live with one or more registered Democrats, figuring they might be more open to listening to a persuasion pitch since they're likely used to hearing different viewpoints from their housemates;

• Scores - Dem Support, Turnout, and other modeling data

Here is a guide to the DNC-provided modeling data VAN provides, and some of the ways it can be used -

https://help.ngpvan.com/van/s/article/Guide-to-DNC-provided-Modeling

Note, the Guide ALSO identifies some ways NOT to use the modeling data. Pay attention, and keep your queries simple until you become more familiar with the nuances of the modeling scores you are using (and how they do or don't combine well when you use more than one in a query).

Here is a guide to using the Scoring data in particular:

https://help.ngpvan.com/van/s/article/2984509-using-scoring-data

VAN has a number of generally useful, and some specifically targeted, modeling data values associated with each voter to assist identifying pools of voters you may be looking for.

Conclusion

These are just some ideas to help stimulate your thoughts about how VAN may be able to help you grow your committee and expand your influence among your community.

I hope it helps.

Contact me and let me know if you have other suggestions, or questions.

Best regards,
Ed Reed