GOTV Demographics and Google Earth

Thanks to gCensus, loading demographic information into Google Earth is a relatively simple process. You can produce a Google Earth KML file to visualize demographic and socioeconomic data from the 2000 U.S. Census -- in some cases down to the census block level.

Let's say you want to pinpoint areas in Green Bay, WI for a door-to-door Latino voter registration drive. According to the 2000 census, there were over 7,000 Latinos in Green Bay. (The Census Bureau estimates that the Latino population has grown to 10,000 in 2007).

We know from the block-group level Wisconsin interactive GOTV map that neighborhoods east of the river have significant concentrations of Latinos. Click here to use the interactive map zoomed to the focus area shown in the graphic below. Areas shaded orange are 20% to 40% Latino.

The FairVote2020 interactive map shows detail only to the block group level (encompassing several city blocks), so the block-level detail available from gCensus can help focus the voter registration effort.

Below is a Google Earth graphic showing more detailed block-level data -- highlighting all census blocks in Green Bay with more than 31 persons who are Latino. These blocks are shaded tan to orange with white boundaries. The map dataset was created from Summary File 1 using the gCensus web form found here.

Click here to download the Green Bay Latino KMZ block file -- edited from the original gCensus KML file. The gCensus dataset expresses block population counts as a range, rather than a discrete count. As part of the editing process, we eliminated all but the top three ranges.

In a future post, we will examine an obvious issue -- citizenship status. According to the 2006 American Community Survey, just one-third of the 6,700 Latinos of voting age in Green Bay are citizens.

Note that in order to overlay census blocks on top of the Brown County Bush-Kerry precinct map as in the map above, we changed the altitude settings of the block file to begin displaying at 8 meters.

Because we are focusing on just a couple dozen census blocks, the KMZ file imports into Google Maps with ease.

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For starters, these blocks are the best areas to begin door-knocking in search of new Latino voters.

From Google Earth to My Maps

For neighborhood-level GOTV work, the complete Brown County map displayed in the previous entry is unnecessarily large. But if you have installed Google Earth, you can work with bite-size chunks.

Click on "View Larger Map" in the Brown County Bush-Kerry map, then click on "View in Google Earth".

Start Google Earth and open the Brown_WI.kmz file. Next zoom in to the area of the county where you want to focus your efforts. In the Google Earth graphic below, the view is zoomed to part of Green Bay.



Add a folder under My Places called Green Bay. Next use Ctrl-Left Click on the Brown_WI.kmz map to identify the voting districts of interest. Use Ctrl-Right Click to copy and paste each ward to the Green Bay folder. (You can also copy and paste from the sidebar, without using the map.) Finally, go to the sidebar and copy the legend folder in Brown_WI.kmz to the Green Bay folder.

Save the Green Bay folder as a .kmz file. Go to Google My Maps and select "Create New Map". Next select "Import" and upload the .kmz file from your computer. Your map should look something like this:



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And you are now ready to overlay your own data -- for example, geocoded placemarks showing newly registered voters.

Brown County, WI (Bush-Kerry)

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Will Google Maps become a serious neighborhood-level tool for campaigns and voter registration drives in 2008?

It seems easy enough. Just save a base map to Google My Maps, then create an overlay or two with your own data. With Google's new collaboration tool, you can share and edit GOTV maps with coworkers, friends, and volunteers. You can make it public or keep it private.

The map above shows precinct-level results for the 2004 presidential contest in Brown County, Wisconsin. The county has 170 election districts or wards. With so many election districts, the Brown County map tests the limits of Internet Explorer, but displays quickly using Firefox.

To save the Brown County Bush-Kerry map to Google My Maps, click on "View Larger Map".

Democracy for Washington Tutorial

Philip Bell of Democracy for Washington has posted an excellent short tutorial on how to use the Washington State interactive map. Thanks for doing this!

Black Power Tools

Here is a nice write-up about the FairVote2020 website by Bruce Dixon.

Black Power Tools on the Internet: Key Voter Data Available to the Grassroots
by Bruce Dixon, Associate Editor, The Black Commentator

Democracy South Tutorial

Winnett Hagens of Democracy South has posted an excellent tutorial showing how to work with the FairVote2020 maps. The tutorial focuses on Greensboro, N.C., but is generally appplicable to other states. Most states, however, differ in that registered voter data does not indicate race.