Census Voting Districts or VTD
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  Census Voting Districts or VTD
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raffrobb
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« on: July 18, 2016, 02:12:35 PM »

Does anyone have any insights in how to retrieve  census VTD data from Census.


I would like to correlate/associate census tract data with Census Voter Districts, for  example which census tracts and blocks are contained in each precinct for Fairfax County, Loudon County, and Prince William County Virginia.

Thanks
raffrobb
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cinyc
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« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2016, 06:23:07 PM »

What specifically are you looking for?  Shapefiles or actual data?  The Shapefiles are here.  I can't find the actual population data from Census' website right now.  You should, however, be able to download it as a .csv file from Dave's Redistricting App.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2016, 06:30:23 PM »

Does anyone have any insights in how to retrieve  census VTD data from Census.

I would like to correlate/associate census tract data with Census Voter Districts, for  example which census tracts and blocks are contained in each precinct for Fairfax County, Loudon County, and Prince William County Virginia.
The voting districts appear to have changes since the Census in 2010 (at least in Accomack County).

The VTDs from the 2010 Census match the results (at least in name) for the 2009 gubernatorial election. They don't match the 2013 gubernatorial elections. In Accomack, there were 21 VTDs at the time of the census and for 2009 precincts for the elections. At the 2013 election there were 17 precincts. There may have been simple consolidations, or a precinct that was eliminated might have been divided among existing precincts.

In the suburban counties there might have been new precincts.

Matching the 2010 VTDs to census tracts is real straightforward.

For the current VTDs there might be GIS files, particularly for the suburban counties.

You might also want to ask on DRA.
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raffrobb
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« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2016, 12:16:22 PM »

I am looking for population data at this point in time. Shapefiles will come in handy for my next step.

What is DRA, is that Dave's Reapportion App?

I can't access Dave's Reapportion App via the link you gave me...do I need Silverlight--I get that messge on link page.

Are Block-Tract-VTD population data in American Fact Finder/Census website, I looked and searched and tried numerous option but unable to obtain using site and selections...would you happen to know steps or sequence of clicks?

Thanks
Robb
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cinyc
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« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2016, 03:29:46 PM »

I am looking for population data at this point in time. Shapefiles will come in handy for my next step.

What is DRA, is that Dave's Reapportion App?

I can't access Dave's Reapportion App via the link you gave me...do I need Silverlight--I get that messge on link page.

Are Block-Tract-VTD population data in American Fact Finder/Census website, I looked and searched and tried numerous option but unable to obtain using site and selections...would you happen to know steps or sequence of clicks?

Thanks
Robb

Yes, you need Silverlight to access DRA (Dave's Redistricting App).  The site no longer works with Chrome.  You have to use a different browser.  Firefox is compatible, as long as you download Silverlight.

Dave's Redistricting App is what many posters here use to make their state district maps.  Basically, you choose a state and then draw a map of districts from it.  The app has population, racial and 2008 presidential results data for each state that has VTDs.  You can download the data from there for each state in a .csv file.

I couldn't find VTD data on Census' website when I searched for it yesterday, but it should be there somewhere.  Perhaps jimrtex knows where it is.  You certainly can download block or block group data and use that to build VTD results - but that's a cumbersome process.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #5 on: July 19, 2016, 03:40:17 PM »

I am looking for population data at this point in time. Shapefiles will come in handy for my next step.

What is DRA, is that Dave's Reapportion App?

I can't access Dave's Reapportion App via the link you gave me...do I need Silverlight--I get that messge on link page.

Are Block-Tract-VTD population data in American Fact Finder/Census website, I looked and searched and tried numerous option but unable to obtain using site and selections...would you happen to know steps or sequence of clicks?
There is a trick in using American Fact Finder for areas that have changed definitions (such as VTDs). As you are selecting items, AFF is filtering corresponding items. In the case of VTDs (in Virginia at least), the 2000 VTDs are not the same as the 2010 VTDs, even when they have the same name and cover the same territory). If you select both sets, AFF decides it doesn't have any data for ALL of the VTDs, since it only has 2010 population for the 2010 VTDs, and 2000 populations for the 2000 VTDs.

So the first thing to do is to select the Year:

Topics > Year > 2010

Then under Geography, select the "All Geographic Types" radio button.

Select:  State - County - Voting District

The select the state and county, then select all the VTDs.  Add to Selection.

You could build up your selection by county, except that there is a limit on how many items you can select at a time. Fairfax has 238 VTDs, and fills up most of the capacity of 250.

So I have now selected the 238 VTDs in Fairfax County.

But let's go ahead and select:

Topics > People > Basic County/Total

You will then be given a checkbox of Race. Click it and then View or Download. You can download from the View display, so I usually View and then download.

But this is not really what you asked for, but it does illustrate typical navigation in AFF.

There is an geography:

State - County - Voting District - Census Tract or Part.

If we choose that, we can now select:

Virginia > Fairfax > Albin > both census tract (parts).

I wouldn't use this for Fairfax County, because I have just selected the census tracts for one of the 238 VTDs in the county.

So we back up and choose:

State - County - Census Tract - Block Group - Block

Select Virginia - Fairfax

At this point, you now have an option to get all the blocks for Fairfax County (and in this case Fairfax City - I assume you know about Independent Cities in Virginia).

So I select "All Blocks In Fairfax County"

Now under refine your search, enter "Geographic Identifiers" and select one of the data set. I'd probably do the SF1, since it may have some corrections.

Select View if you like, then Download. You will get a ZIP file with a CSV file, with 11,226 rows and 104 columns. You can open the CSV file directly in Excel (which I assume you have).

There is one row per census block.

Among the columns are the census tract (the census tract numbers are also included as part of the GEOID for the block). The VTD for each block is included. You may want to back up to the first example to get a list of VTD number to VTD name relationships. There are also city/CDP's and school districts which might be useful.

The Geographic Identifiers also includes the Population of the block. If you want racial data, back up to where you have selected all the census blocks for a county.

You will have to do this for each county (and independent city). If you're just doing NOVA this is probably OK, if you want to do the entire state, there is a way to get all the data in bulk (and I do mean bulk).

Let me know what you want with shapefiles.
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