Voter File Tagging

This article will cover everything you need to know about Voter File Tagging including:

• Use Cases
• Getting Started with Voter File Tagging
  • File Type 
  • What to Include in Your File 
  • Uploading your Tag File
• Action Targeting with Tags

Voter File Tagging Overview and Use Cases

Rally uses a voter file for matching. While that file is robust, it does not know what you know! Voter File Tagging empowers you to target specialized actions at any group of contacts, informed by your own data. 

You might use voter file tagging to create custom actions for:

• People who live in a geographic area that’s not covered by Rally’s districting
• A group of voters you’ve identified as passionate about a particular issue
• Age-based groups of voters
• Formerly active volunteers who need a targeted re-engagement ask  
• Any list that helps you achieve your goals

It works like this: You upload a Tag File – that is, a csv file that contains the voter IDs of the voters you want to tag, and the tag you’d like to associate with them. Your tags will be applied to all of the voters you identify in the voter file– whether or not they’ve been added to your network yet by mobilizers. Then, you can target actions at contacts based on the tags associated with their records. 

Once a Tag File is active, we will keep the tags that we found in that file in sync with any voter file matches added to your organization. 

Getting Started with Tag Files

Before uploading your tag file, you will need to ensure the file is compatible and meets specific requirements.

File Type

Rally accepts plain-text .csv files or gzip compressed .csv files. You may only upload one file at a time. 

Note: If you are uploading a large .csv, we recommend compressing it first. This will greatly improve the processing time. 

What to Include in Your File

Here’s what you need to include in your file:

• In order for us to connect the voters in your file to the voters in Rally, your file must use a unique identifier that rally recognizes. You can either include: 

• Both a state column (consisting of 2-letter state abbreviations) and a state_voterfile_id column (each voter’s voter ID as it appears in the state file)

OR

• A column of consisting of canonical_voter_ids with the header identifier or canonical_voter_id. 

AND

• We also need to know the tags you’d like to apply to these voters. 
  • Your file must have a column of tags with the header tags. 
  • The values in the tags column must be comma-separated lists of tags, with the entire list enclosed in quotes. Your tags column must come after your identifier or state_votefiler_id column. 
  • You can apply multiple tags to a single voter in the same file. 

Here’s your formatting options in more detail. You can use whichever of the following two options works best for you. 

1. Canonical Voter ID + Tags Format 

This is a two column format that uses canonical voter IDs as the leading column (named either canonical_voter_id or identifier) with tags listed in the second column. In a spreadsheet application like Google Sheets, Numbers, or Excel, it would look like this:

canonical_voter_id	tags
IL_12345	high_priority,donor
IL_23456	volunteer
IL_34567	donor

 

And the csv file that you export from that spreadsheet application would look like this:

canonical_voter_id,tags

IL_12345,"high_priority,donor"

IL_23456,"volunteer"

IL_34567,"donor"

2. State + State ID + Tags Format

This is a three column format that uses state as the leading column, followed by state_voterfile_id in the second column, and tags listed in the third column. In a spreadsheet application like Google Sheets, Numbers, or Excel, it would look like this:

state	state_voterfile_id	tags
IL	12345	high_priority,donor
IL	23456	volunteer
IL	34567	donor

 

And the csv file that you export from that spreadsheet application, would look like this:

state,state_voterfile_id,tags

IL,12345,"high_priority,donor"

IL,23456,"volunteer"

IL,34567,"donor"

If you are preparing your file using a spreadsheet application like Excel or Google Sheets, ensure you export the file as a .csv before attempting to upload as a tag file. 

The Upload Process

Once you have prepared your .csv, you are ready to upload your tag file to Rally! This process will happen in three steps:

1. You upload a Tag File. First make sure your file fits Rally’s criteria, as described above!
2. We preprocess your file. Rally tidies up the data in your file, finds the voters you’re looking for in our file, then gets ready to apply your tags. We let you know some helpful stats and if there are any issues.
3. You activate your tags. Once your file has been preprocessed, if everything looks good, you can activate your tags. We’ll go and apply the tags you specified to your voters. You’ll be able to see how many people with your tags are in your network, and we’ll keep those counts updated as more contacts get added by mobilizers.

Upload a Tag File

To start the uploading process, navigate to the Organization Dashboard by selecting the dropdown arrow in the top left corner near your Org and Campaign name.

Once on the Organization dashboard, select the “Voter File” tab. Here you will see a list of any previously uploaded tag files. If you haven’t uploaded any files, you’ll see guidance about getting started. To start a new upload, select the “+ Upload Tag File” button on the right side of the screen.

A modal will appear to create a new tag file. You will have the option to review details on preparing your file in the “Documentation” dropdown, or you can click “Choose file” to select the desired .csv file to upload.

Select the .csv file from your device's local file folder, then select “open”. After selecting your file, a prompt will appear from Rally indicating your file’s compatibility. Then, select “Upload.”

Rally will confirm your file has been successfully uploaded with a message and then will ask you to give the Tag File a name before completing its creation. Select the blue “Create a Tag File” button once you enter your file’s name.

Preprocessing

After creating the Tag File, you are prompted with a screen indicating preprocessing has started. This part of the process takes a few minutes for most files, though depending on the size of the file uploaded it could be longer. You can either wait a few minutes and then manually refresh the page, or you can return to the list of your Org’s Tag Files by selecting the light blue back arrow in the top left corner of the screen.

The “Current State” column will communicate when your tag file is preprocessed and ready for review. The different status options you’ll see here are active, inactive, or error. 

• When a file is inactive, it means that it has been preprocessed, and it’s ready to be set to active once you review it. 
• If there is an error, please check and see if your file is missing any of the requirements outlined above, make any necessary changes, and try uploading it again. You can always reach out to us if you need help! 
• When a file is active, it means you’ve completed the process and your tags are live in Rally! 

When you click on the name of an inactive tag file, you’ll be taken to a screen confirming your preprocessing is complete. You will also see the options to activate or delete your tag file. Activating the tag file will apply the uploaded tags to matched contacts across campaigns within your Organization. Deleting the tag file in the preprocessing stage will remove the uploaded list from your Organization without applying any tags.

Before making the decision to activate or delete the uploaded Tag File, we advise you to carefully review the preprocessing statistics generated from the file you upload. This will help you make sure everything looks right before you go ahead and activate your file.

 

What to Do if Preprocessing Fails 

If you received an error message during the preprocessing phase, check your file to make sure that: 

• Your headers are in the right order. 
  • If you’re using identifier or canonical_voter_id, make sure that column is before your tags column
  • If you’re using state and state_voter_id, make sure you have state first, then state_voter_id, then tags 
• Your file includes the correct headers.
  • Your file must include:
    • Both a state column and a state_voterfile_id column OR A column consisting of canonical_voter_ids with the header identifier or canonical_voter_id
    • A column of tags with the header tags
• You are using IDs that we support
  • (canonical voter IDs or state voter file IDs, with headers as described above)
• Your file’s rows aren’t empty

If you identify one of the common errors above, delete this file and upload your file again with the error corrected. If you’re not sure what’s going wrong, you can contact support (help@rally.win) and we can use some of the more detailed information that we have stashed behind the scenes to help figure out what happened.

Activating your Tags

When you’ve reviewed your preprocessing statistics and are ready to activate your tags, select the “Activate Tag File” button. You can either remain on the page and refresh after a few minutes, or you can return to the list of your Organization’s Tag Files by selecting the light blue back arrow in the top left corner of the screen.

Once your file is activated, you will see details and controls appear at the top of your screen. The controls allow you to either deactivate or delete the selected tag file. Deactivating the file means it will not be used to tag any new contacts your mobilizers add, but existing folks will remain tagged. Deleting the file will remove the tag list and its tags from Rally completely.

Below the controls, you will see live statistics showing the utilization of tags from this tag file, along with detailed descriptions of each statistic. The preprocessing statistics are still listed below the live statistics for your reference.

Action Targeting using Tags 

After uploading a tag list, you will be able to utilize these tags to target actions! To do so, enter the Action Editor and select an Action. Under “Target this action by…” you can select Add Criteria and choose target by voter file tags.

Actions can be targeted to contacts with specific tags, or tags can be used to exclude contacts with certain tags. To learn more about Action targeting, see our full article here.

Note: Tags are not visible to mobilizers. If you wish to communicate to Mobilizers something specific about their contact, we recommend describing why you recommend this action for this contact in your Action’s description.