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Viewing Mail Ballot Return Data
Returned Ballots by Race/Ethnicity
Early Ballot Returns
PDI will be providing early ballot return data for the upcoming primary as frequently as the local counties will make the data available to us. As early ballots are returned to local registrar offices, many of them will provide us with daily updates while others will only provide us with 2-3 updates per week. To help you plan your work, we will post a tentative schedule for each county as to the day and time we expect to have mail ballot data loaded in your PDI online software account.
Here is what you need to know about the mail ballot return data.
- There is nothing you need to do to get the early ballot data in your PDI online software account. It will show up automatically.
- We generally post updates throughout the day from different counties as the data is received.
- PDI has absolutely no control over what time of day the data is available to us or the consistency in counties maintaining their own schedules. It comes when it comes and we appreciate it.
- Registrar offices are under tremendous stress during the election season and contacting your local registrar office directly to check on or expedite a data release will only cause delays and bother the folks working long hours to process early ballot returns. You are paying us to handle this work for you, please let us do it.
- You may not see any meaningful return numbers until roughly three weeks prior to the election.
- PDI has an early vote tracker that is helpful for analyzing the returned ballots: PDI Ballot Tracker.
- Registrar offices do not always process ballots in a timely manner. They may have other important priorities to manage before processing early ballots. Do not expect the PDI data to immediately show a returned ballot in our online system. It should show in 3-5 business days from when it was mailed but could be longer.
- County election officials have no legal obligation to provide this data. They are only obligated to provide similar data directly to individual voters themselves who inquire about the status of their own ballot. In turn, we are obligated to remove any voters that have already voted or returned ballots from any data being produced for contacting voters for that election. This way voters aren't bothered by campaigns after they have already voted and campaigns can save time and money by focusing on the remaining voters that can still vote. We do not sell this returned ballot data for voter contact until after election, but we do provide aggregate data, like in our tracker and visible in reports within the client PDI accounts who are trying to track the voters as they come in.
- Make sure your account election date is correct. You can check this by confirming the Election Day countdown is correct on your program Home Page.
- The purpose of loading mail ballot return data in the PDI system is primarily to eliminate communications to individuals who have already returned their ballot and save organizations from the human and financial costs associated with such communications. This data is not intended to support accurate predictions of election turnout or results.
Viewing Mail Ballot Return Data
From the Dashboard menu, select Mail Ballot Updates to view information regarding voting activity for your geographic area. You can control which widgets are displayed by customizing your dashboard.
The following widgets are available:
System Updates
This widget provides information on when PDI has uploaded voter data. As information is received from election officials, PDI processes it and uploads it to the system. For more information about these updates, see Election File Updates below.
Returned Ballots
This widget provides information regarding how many ballots have been returned, including the total number and breaking it down by party affiliation.
Daily Mail Ballot Statistics
This widget provides graphical information regarding how many ballots have been returned, breaking it down into a total number of ballots and by party affiliation. There is a dropdown to select how many days to display: 7, 15, 21, 30, and 60 days.
Returned Ballots by Age
This widget breaks down the returned ballots by age group: 18-34, 35-49, 50-64, 65+
Returned Ballots by Race/Ethnicity
This widget breaks down the returned ballots by race/ethnicity.
Returned Ballots by Gender
This widget breaks down the returned ballots by gender.
The first thing you will notice in your account related to early voting is the count of Issued Mail Ballots will appear in the Key Statistics section of your program homepage dashboard. In California, the count should be very close to the total number of voters in your account geography.
During statewide elections, PDI has a Mail Ballot Tracker that has detailed information with our visualization tools: PDI Ballot Tracker.
Voter Universes
You can include or exclude individuals who have returned their mail ballots from the Create Voter Universes → Early Voting tab.
Once you have created a voter universe and are ready to name and save it, you can click on the red Exclude Dead, Moved, Voted, Suppress button. This will remove the individuals who have returned their ballots from the entire universe.
To check on a specific voter’s mail ballot return status, you can look them up with the People Search tool → Voter Info tab.
Election File Updates
Election file updates can be viewed on the System Updates section of the home page. When you are logged into the system, turn on the System Updates widget for your dashboard (Customizing Your Dashboard). You can confirm the loads by reviewing the System Updates section of the Homepage Dashboard.”