precinct

The Precinct object represents a precinct, which is contained within a Locality. While the id attribute does not have to be static across feeds for one election, the combination of Source.VipId, Locality.Name, Precinct.Ward, Precinct.Name, and Precinct.Number should remain constant across feeds for one election (NB: not all of the fields just mentioned are required – omitting those non-required fields is fine).

Voters can be assigned to a precinct in two ways. A voter location modeled by StreetSegment is assigned to a precinct by StreetSegment.PrecinctId. Alternatively, a precinct’s spatial boundary can be modeled with Precinct.SpatialBoundary. Any registered voter address contained within the spatial boundary of the precinct is assigned to that precinct.

Tag Data Type Required? Repeats? Description Error Handling
ballot_style_id xs:IDREF Optional Single Links to the ballot_style, which a person who lives in this precinct will vote. If the field is invalid or not present, then the implementation is required to ignore it.
electoral_district_ids xs:IDREFS Optional Single Links to the :ref:`multi-csv-electoral-district`s (e.g., congressional district, state house district, school board district) to which the entire precinct/precinct split belongs. Highly Recommended if candidate information is to be provided. If the field is invalid or not present, then the implementation is required to ignore it.
external_identifiers external_identifiers Optional Single Other identifier for the precinct that relates to another dataset (e.g. `OCD-ID`_). If the element is invalid or not present, then the implementation is required to ignore it.
is_mail_only xs:boolean Optional Single Determines if the precinct runs mail-only elections. If the field is missing or invalid, the implementation is required to assume IsMailOnly is false.
locality_id xs:IDREF Required Single Links to the locality that comprises the precinct. If the field is invalid, then the implementation is required to ignore the Precinct element containing it.
name xs:string Required Single Specifies the precinct’s name (or number if no name exists). If the field is invalid, then the implementation is required to ignore the Precinct element containing it.
number xs:string Optional Single Specifies the precinct’s number (e.g., 32 or 32A – alpha characters are legal). Should be used if the Name field is populated by a name and not a number. If the field is invalid or not present, then the implementation is required to ignore it.
polling_location_ids xs:IDREFS Optional Single Specifies a link to the precinct’s polling_location object(s). If the field is invalid or not present, then the implementation is required to ignore it.
precinct_split_name xs:string Optional Single If this field is empty, then this Precinct object represents a full precinct. If this field is present, then this Precinct object represents one portion of a split precinct. Each Precinct object that represents one portion of a split precinct must have the same Name value, but different PrecinctSplitName values. See the sample_feed.xml file for examples. If the field is invalid or not present, then the implementation is required to ignore it.
spatial_boundary_id xs:IDREF Optional Single Defines the spatial boundary of the precinct. All voter addresses contained within this boundary are assigned to the precinct. If a voter address also maps to a StreetSegment, then the precinct assignment from the StreetSegment will be preferred over the assignment from the spatial boundary. If the element is invalid or not present, then the implementation is required to ignore it.
ward xs:string Optional Single Specifies the ward the precinct is contained within. If the field is invalid or not present, then the implementation is required to ignore it.
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 id,ballot_style_id,electoral_district_ids,external_identifier_type,external_identifier_othertype,external_identifier_value,is_mail_only,locality_id,name,number,polling_location_ids,precinct_split_name,spatial_boundary_id,ward
 pre90111,bs00010,ed001,ocd-id,,ocd-division/country:us,false,loc001,203 - GEORGETOWN,0203,poll001 poll002,split13,sb1,,5
 pre90112,bs00011,ed002,fips,,42,false,loc001,203 - GEORGETOWN,0203,poll003,split26,,6
 pre90113,bs00010,ed003,,,,false,loc002,203 - GEORGETOWN,0203,poll004,split54,sb1,7

spatial_boundary

The SpatialBoundary object defines a boundary in space. This boundary is usually defined by one or more discrete, closed polygonal shapes.

Tag Data Type Required? Repeats? Description Error Handling
external_geospatial_feature_id xs:IDREF Required Single The spatial boundary defined by a geospatial feature that is external to the VIP feed. If the element is invalid, then the implementation is required to ignore the SpatialBoundary element containing it.
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 id,external_geospatial_feature_id
 sb1,egf1

external_geospatial_feature

The ExternalGeospatialFeature object contains a reference to a geospatial feature (one or more shapes) contained in a separate file external to the VIP feed.

Tag Data Type Required? Repeats? Description Error Handling
external_file_id xs:IDREF Required Single Links to the external_file containing the geospatial shape(s) that define the feature’s boundary. If the field is invalid, then the implementation is required to ignore the ExternalGeospatialFeature element containing it.
file_format geospatial_format Required Single The format of the geospatial file. If the field is invalid, then the implementation is required to ignore the ExternalGeospatialFeature element containing it.
feature_identifier feature_identifier Required Repeats Identifiers indicating which specific shape(s) to use from the geospatial file. These refer to identifiers within the referenced external file. This is a repeated field in the XML specification, but a scalar field in the CSV specification. If more than one identifier is required with the CSV specifiation, multiple values can be provided by delimited by space. If the element is invalid, then the implementation is required to ignore the ExternalGeospatialFeature element containing it.
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 id,external_file_id,file_format,shape_identifiers
 egf1,ef1,shp,0 7 9

feature_identifier

Tag Data Type Required? Repeats? Description Error Handling
index xs:int Optional Single The index value for the shapefile feature. If the field is invalid or not present, then the implementation is required to ignore it.