Voting blocks are used to group voters and/or dwellings together based on one or more shared attributes.

Blocks can be created for voters and/or dwellings. You may define groups and make them applicable for both voters and dwellings. Once created, elsewhere in the system you may assign any number of voters or dwellings to these groups. Reports may then be printed containing only voters or dwellings associated with specific blocks. Using voting blocks may allow your campaign to communicate with different blocks of voters in different ways and/or by different members of your campaign team.

Block Code: A unique code the system will use to identity the block internally. It must not contain spaces and will generally not be seen when using the system. The maximum length of the code is 10.

Description: The description of the block. It should be descriptive but as short as possible although you are allowed up to 32 characters.

Voting Probability Modifier: A number between -10000 and 10000 which will represent the percentage decrease or increase of a voter's likelihood to vote when that voter is associated with this block. A value of 100 means a 100% increase in the likelihood of a voter voting, or twice as likely. -100 means there is a zero chance of this voter voting. This calculation will be made when generaing snapshots, when displayed on reports potentially, and perhaps in some other places. If a voter is associated with more than one block, each blocks modifier will be used to calculate the actual voting probability. This modifier will be ignored for any voter which is assigned to a block using a "set voting probability."

Support Probability Modifier: Works like the Voting Probability Modifier but affects the voter's "support probability" which is how likely a given voter will vote for you or your candidate.

Set Voting Probability: The likelihood of somebody assigned to the block in question of voting for you. Expected to be a number between 1 and 100. 100 = 100% - The voter will definitely vote for you. As the number 0 will have no effect, if you want to force a 0% chance of a voter supporting you if assigned to a block, enter a negative 1 (-1). The system will automatically change any value less than zero to zero. If a voter is assigned to more than one block which uses a set voting probability, the system will use an average value for all applicable blocks. If a voter is assigned to one or more blocks using a set voting probability in addition to blocks using a voting probability modifier, the voting probability modifier will be ignored.

Set Support Probability: Works like the "Set Voting Probability" only this value is for the voter's Support Probability - how likely a voter is to vote for you or your candidate.

On Dwelling: If set to "YES" you will be allowed to assign dwellings (addresses) to the block. All voters who are recorded as living in that dwelling during the campaign will be assumed to be assigned to this block.

On Voter: If set to "YES" you will be allowed to assign voters to the block.

Blocks can be created to allow for voters to be assigned to them, dwellings to be assigned to them, or both voters and dwellings to be assigned to them.

For example a "Red Hair" voting block would probably be set up so that only voters can be assigned to it, while a "Gravel Driveway" block may be a more appropriate for dwellings. A "Senior Citizen" block might be appropriate for both dwellings (such as a retirement community) and voters. When a dwelling is assigned to a block, it is assumed that all voters living in that dwelling (address) below to the group in question.

You should be aware that when a voter is assigned to one or more blocks, if that voter moves, the voter will still be associated with the groups(s) in question. If a voter lives in a dwelling which is associated with one or more blocks, if the voter moves to a new dwelling, he/she will no longer be associated with the blocks associated with his/her previous residence.

You certainly may create two separate blocks, one associated with voters the other associated with dwellings, instead of having a group associated with both. Allowing blocks to be associated with block dwellings and voters is just a method of minimizing the number of blocks you will have to maintain, If a block is not set up to be on voters or dwellings, then you won't have the oppotrunity to associate anything with it - effectively the same situation as if the block dodesn't exist.

In addition to grouping voters or dwellings together, voting blocks can be used to adjust the voting and support probabilities of voters.

During a campaign, the Voters In Mind system periodically creates a "snapshot" - the purpose of which is an attempt to give you an idea of how many votes your candidate may get on election day. This is done using a number of assumptions.

In System Parameters the "default support probability" and "default voting probability" is defined. These values are arbitrary assumptions of the likelihood of any new voter voting for your candidate and voting in the election at all.

Basically, if we assume any new voter created in the system has a voting probability of "5" or 50% then this voter has a 50/50 chance of voting or not. If the default support probability is "3" or 30%, then it is assumed any new voter created has a 30% chance of voting for you --- if that person votes. To determine how many votes you may get, the system does some math. If you have 100 voters created with these default values, when generating snapshots, the system will assume you will win 100 * 0.5 * 0.3 = 15 votes. (100 voters in the system each with a 50% liklihood of voting means 50 people are expected to vote. If 30% of those people vote for your candidate, you're looking at 15 votes.)

One of the goals of your campaign is probably to contact as many voters as possible to get a better idea of how likely any individual will vote for you or your candidate, but failing that you might be able to better estimate voter turnout and support using blocks.

You may decide (perhaps "assume" is a better word) that some people will be more or less likely to vote, or vote for you based on certain things. For example, in local elections, senior citizens may be twice as liekly to vote than average. And perhaps you're a sheep farmer and you feel that other sheep farmers are more likely to vote for you than pig farmers who generally hate you.

These affinities and prejudices can be factored into the system's calculations by using the "modifiers" and "set" values.

Voting and Support Probability Modifiers: Increase or the default voting and support probabilities by the percentage entered. A voting probability modifier of "100" would mean that a voter is 100% (or twice) as likely to vote for you or your campaign as somebody you know nothing about. Conversely, a modifier of -50 is 50% less likely to vote for you.

Set Voting and Support Probabilities: You would enter an exact percentage of how likely a voter would vote and vote for you, which would override the detault value.

Getting back to our example, you might set up the following groups:

Group	Voting Probability Modifier	Support Probability Modifier	Set Voting Probability	Set Support Probability	On Dwelling	On Voter
Seniors	100	20	0	0	N	Y
Lawn Sign	0	0	90	0	Y	N
Farmers	0	-50	0	0	Y	Y
Family	0	0	80	80	N	Y

Once set up, you would be able to assign voters to the "Seniors", "Farmers", and "Family" groups" while dwellings would be assignable to the "Lawn Sign" and "Farmers" groups.

A group such as "Farmers" which is applicable to both voters and dwellings could be used so that any address (dwelling) which is a farm can be assigned to such a group while voters could also be tagged as such even if they don't happen to live on an farm. You could create 2 seperate groups called "Farms" making one applicable to voters and the other to dwellings. Allowing you to create one group for both is simply an effort to make things simpler.

When snapshots are created, calculations are done to estimate how many people will vote, and how many of those will vote for you or your campaign.

Each voter in the system has a voting probability (how likely he/she will vote) and a support probability (how likely he/she will vote for you or your candidate.

When a new voter is created in the system he/she is assigned by default the voting probability and support probability as defined in system parameters.

As the campaign progresses and your campaign team talk to voters you will no doubt want to change these probabilities.

Until a voter's support or voting probability has been manually changed, the modifiers and set values in Voting Blocks is used to adjust those probabilities when creating a snapshot. Once a voter's support or voting probability is manually changed, the modifiers in Voting Blocks will not be used for that voter. It is assumed that the manually entered probabilities are more accurate than what was previously being assumed.

Of course the modifiers entered in Voting Blocks affect only those voters assigned to the block in question, or voters who live in a dwelling assigned to a voting block.

So how do monifiers work you ask? Well in the example above we have created 4 blocks.

Let's say we have 10 voters in the system who live at three addresses. All voters have initial voting and support probabilities and some of them have been assigned to one or more voting blocks as shown in the table.

Voter Name	Voting Prob.	Support Prob.	Street Address	Blocks Assigned	Adj. Voting Prob.	Adj. Support Prob.
J, Parkins	40%	20%	100 Main		40%	20%
W. Zhang	40%	20%	100 Main	Seniors	80%	24%
B. Smith	40%	20%	200 Main	Lawn Sign	90%	20%
M. Smith	40%	20%	200 Main	Lawn Sign	90%	20%
X. Sale	40%	20%	300 Main	Seniors Farmers	80%	14%

J. Parkins is not assigned to any blocks, so the adjusted probabilities are the same.

W. Zhang is assigned to the Seniors block, which uses a 100% modifier for voting probability and 20% modifier for support probability, so the system takes the original 40%/20% probabilities, making them 80% and 24% respectively. (100% more likely to vote, and 20% more likely to vote for your candidate.)

The Lawn Sign Block is set up only for dwellings, so when this block is assigned to 200 Main St., both voters who live there, B.Smith and M.Smith are affected by the modifiers, in this case is the "set voting probability" of 90%.

And finally, X.Sale is assigned to 2 blocks, which are applied seperately.
Voting Probability = 40% + 100% adjustment = 80%
Support Probability = 20% + 20% Seniors Adjustment + -50% Farmers Adjustment = 24%

Again, once the support or voting probability for any voter has been manually changed, these adjustments will not be applied when the system calculates how likely it is that somebody will vote or vote for you.

Any modifier set to 0 (zero) has no effect. You can either use the Support or Voting Probability modifiers to adjust voters' values to zero by setting them to -100. Or you could set up the Set Voting and/or Set Support Probabilities to -1.

If both the Voting Probability Modifier and Set Voting Probability values are set, the system will use the Set Voting Probability number, ignoring the Voting Probability Modifier. The same goes for Support Probability.

When using the Voting and Support Probability modifiers, if any calculation of the support or voting probabilities results in a value greater than 90%, the system with assume 90%. If any calculation results in a value less than 0%, 0% will be used.

You may use the Set Voting and Set Support probabilities to any value between 1 and 100. Setting it to -1 will trick the system into using zero as it will automatically set any value which is less than zero to zero.

None of these adjustments will actually change the voting and support probabilities you see when viewing voters in Voter Contacts...these calculated values will be used when generating snapshots or when printing reports if the appropriate options are selected.