Campaigns



Much of what is entered into the Voters In Mind system is entered in the context of a "campaign" (which you may call an "election".) One of the first things you need to do before you can use the system is to create at least one campaign. Even if you don't know when Election Day is, you still need to create a campaign. Voters In Mind is able to track voters and dwellings (houses/apartments) from one campaign to the next and a voter may be eligible to vote in one election but not in the next. Campaigns allow you to view pertinent information for the current election while excluding (but keeping) information from previous elections (or campaigns.)

It is expected that this system will be used over the course of multiple campaigns. The moment one campaign ends, win or lose, a new one can be begin.

Once logged into your account, select "Voters In Mind" from the left hand menu, and then click "Campaigns". Once set up, a campaign will normally not need to be changed. (Unless for some reason the election date itself changes.)

Campaign Code: A 3 digit numeric code that uniquely identifies the campaign in question. It is recommended that the campaign code you create corresponds to the current year, such as "20" for a campaign ending in 2020. The system often orders things by campaign code, so this is good practice to keep things in order. You could simply use "1", and then the next campaign can be "2" etc. Leaving gaps between your campaign codes will allow you to enter another campaign in between existing campaigns if that should become necessary. If you may have more than one campaign in a given year, you could use for example "201" for a campaign ending in 2020. If you want to have another campaign in 2020, that one could be numbered "202" and so on.

For example, let's say you create your first campaign for city council - election day being August 7, 2016 - and you give it a code of 161. After that election is over you create a new campaign for your next city council election, giving it the number 201 - election day being November 2, 2020. In the meantime, you decide to run in a school board election in 2018. You could then create campaign 181 and it will fit in between the first two campaigns you entered, 161 and 201. If you numbered your first two campaigns 1 and 2, there wouldn't be room to put a new campaign in between and have it be in chronological order.

Campaign Description: A phrase describing the campaign. For example, "2016 Ward 1 City Council"

Date of Election (YYYYMMDD): Election Day, (eg. "20161102")

Short Description: This code is used on various reports and forms where space is tight. It can be up to 5 characters which can very briefly describe the campaign. For example perhaps just the 2 digit year preceded with an apostrophe - '16