L2 provides two ways to analyze and select voters based on their level of previous voting activity.
The Voting Frequency branch counts the total number of general and primary elections in which a voter has voted in the previous four even years (not counting the current year). The higher the number the more active the voter has been.
Note, however, that the Voting Frequency branch does not consider when a voter registered with the result that more recently registered voters who have not been eligible to vote in elections two, four or eight years ago, will show up as having a lower level of voting frequency even though they have voted in all elections for which they were eligible since their date of registration.
The Voting Performance selection branch is an alternative to the voting frequency branch and analyzes the tendency of voters to vote by counting all elections of a certain type for which they were eligible to vote (considering their date of registration) and then computes the percentage of those elections in which they actually voted.
In the example below, Democrats in the 1st Congressional District in Pennsylvania were selected.
Opening up the Voting Performance > % Performance in Even Year Primaries Branches, you can see a total of ~49K voters have a 75%+ performance in even year primaries out of those ~302K that make up the universe of Democrats in Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District.
In the second example below, a voter who registered just before the last even-year general election and voted in that election will show up as a 100% general election voter because he or she was eligible to vote for just one election and did, in fact, cast a ballot in that election. See the selection of “Registration Date” on 10/01/16 or after.
The “% Performance In Minor Elections” branch is calculated somewhat differently. It checks the date of registration of each voter and then counts the number of years since then in which the voter cast a ballot in a local, municipal, special or runoff election. If a voter registered four years ago and voted in at least one minor election in two of the four years since he or she would appear as a 50% performance minor election voter. Voting in more than one minor election each year will not increase a voter’s score in this category. Voters in the “Not Eligible” category are those who registered too recently to have been eligible to vote in even one of the categorized elections. The Voting Performance selection branch thus allows for a more nuanced analysis of voting performance in specific categories of elections.
