Democratizing the national election calendar

We recently wrapped up work on compiling a 2018 election calendar dataset and thought some of y’all out there might also find it useful.

For those who might be wondering why we undertook this particular project, keep in mind that the DNC “raises money, hires staff, and coordinates strategy to support candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office.” Serving as the foundation to that strategy are two core pieces of data: the states’ registered voter files and election calendars. It should come as no surprise that in order to figure out how to 1) get your message out to voters and 2) get information to voters on how and when to vote, one needs both the canonical roster of voters eligible to vote and an understanding of the deadlines surrounding voter registration and voting.

For too long, this data has been meticulously compiled up and down the ballot in a duplicative or obscure fashion. We saw this project as important for us, of course, and given how it’s historically been compiled, we figured others out there in the progressive ecosystem would have a need for this information as well.

Here’s a sampling of the kind of data you can find in the dataset:

• State reference information (booleans for automatic, online, or election day voter registration, whether a state offers voting by mail and/or a permanent absentee option)
• Primary election information (primary date, primary type — open, closed, semi-closed, etc., voter registration deadlines, early voting windows, etc.)
• General election information (voter registration deadlines, early voting windows, polling place hours)

We have grander visions of how to democratize this data in the future in additional formats as well (stay tuned), but in the interim, we hope you (or someone you know) finds this data useful. You can access the data right here on Github.