Finding Election Data to use in Goal Tracker
In order to add similar election data into Goal Tracker, you’ll first need to find that data.
The best resource for finding election data will often be your Secretary of State's website or your local elections department. Because the type of election data reported to the SOS varies by state, users may need to pull the data from their local elections department. If it is not available online, you may need to call to ask them to send the data to you.
Data needed for Goal Tracker:
- Total voter turnout in a past similar election
- Total registered voters who were eligible to vote in that past similar election
Users can add data from a minimum of one previous election cycle into Goal Tracker, but we recommend putting in data for the three past elections for your seat. This will allow Goal Tracker to better calculate the potential voter turnout in the upcoming race by averaging the turnout for those past similar elections.
Video walkthrough of this process is at the bottom of the page. The written explanation is below.
Example from the Texas SOS:
While you may not live in Texas, the search for this election data will likely involve a similar process. Navigate to the Secretary of State’s website, and click Elections and Voting. Click Elections Results, then click on Historical Election Results.
From there, navigate to the elections you need to gather data from. In the below example, that is the General Election in 2022 and 2020.
Walkthrough: How to find Election Data
The process will vary by state. The important thing is that you gather the voter turnout and the total number of registered voters in past races for this seat.