❮ Projects page Illinois Campaign for Political Reform

Spatial Analysis Project:

In the State of Illinois, no superset of data has been compiled that shows how many eligible versus registered voters exist side-by-side. Political campaigns can access the voter file, which includes granular data on where each voter lives and how they have voted in previous elections. Any analyst can see the US Census data for Illinois, and view how many “eligible” voters exist in the state. Unfortunately, there is no resource that stacks these two data sets. This means that many of the voter registration efforts across the state are driven by political campaigns, leaving out voters who are not politically expedient to register. We believe it is time to change that, and provide grassroots organizations with the data they need to reach communities across the state that have been missed by normal voter registration drives. Everyone deserves an equal chance to vote and participate in the political process.

Data available:

We have the Illinois voter file from the Illinois State Board of Elections, which includes the names and addresses of all registered voters in Illinois. We also have US census data for the state of Illinois available. These two data sets will be overlaid with GIS maps of Illinois separated by political jurisdiction. We will have some flat maps completed by this summer, but would like to create a detailed, interactive mapping tool that extends all the way down to municipalities, and ideally election precincts. This would show voting trends in various communities, as well as identify areas that voter registration efforts have missed.

Maps and Reports that will be created:

We plan to create an interactive map with multiple views that show both registered and eligible voters by state, county, and municipal political jurisdictions. This data could be used to show voting trends for each area, including the age of voters, voting trends by political party, and historical voter turnout statistics.

How the maps and reports will be used:

The maps will be used by grassroots organizations and nonprofits across the state to identify areas in need of increased voter registration efforts. Universities and nonprofits will also use the data to analyze voter participation across the state.