ABSTRACT
A precinct analysis identifies voting trends geographically, allowing a campaign to efficiently allocate resources where they count the most. The overwhelming majority of voters, whether they are registered Republican, Democrat, or neither, will never cross the aisle—when they vote, it is always for candidates of the same political party. So rather than generalizing political preferences by registration status, historical election data is used to identify categories of voters: sinners, saints, and savables. A votes-owed calculation is possible with election data from a single election. Microtargeting is a marketing activity that utilizes demographic, social, and commercial data to predict voting tendencies. Many campaign strategists rely on polling data to locate friendly demographics. Political pundits and polling firms have elevated the status of independents, or nonaffiliated voters (NAVs), by assuming they are the undecided voters who tip the balance of an election.
