The Vote Our Values Research Team
One of the first steps to flipping districts in central New Jersey is to really get to know them! We have 13 Legislative Districts and 170 municipalities in central NJ and our goal is to analyze them all. Please join us! We’ve devised the following plan to divide and conquer:
- Sign-Up for a District: Please use this link to sign up for a district you live in, grew up in, have friends in or have never heard of! It really doesn’t matter if you are familiar with the district yet, because you will learn all about through your research online. We still have about ten municipalities up for grabs and each of those forms should only take about an hour to complete.
- Research a District: After you select a district or two, I’ll send you a questionnaire with full instructions that you will use to collect data for the selected district. Each questionnaire can be done on your own time, at your computer, within about an hour, and no experience is necessary!
- Analyze the Data: Once all of the data has been submitted by our massive research crew, we will analyze it, summarize it, make reports, and whip up graphs & charts. If that’s an area of expertise for you, please email Jenny at standcnj@gmail.com and we will ensure you get to help in this effort too!
- Use the Analysis: Finally, we will share all of this work with candidates who support our values as well as volunteers, to craft effective outreach strategies for voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote campaigns. This project was inspired by the Sister District Project and they’ve already had success using this model in Delaware, so let’s try it in central NJ too!
FAQ about the Vote our Values Research Team
I really don’t have time to join another team…
This project should only take about an hour of your time and you get to work from home as you find the time. Can you squeeze it in?
What do you mean by research?
We will send you a research questionnaire with full instructions. For the most part, you will follow the links we’ve provided, find the information for your municipality, and copy and paste the data into the form. The research form is a Google Spreadsheet and should be accessible by all, so long as you have the internet and a free Google account.
But I’ve never even heard of the municipalities left on the list!
That’s okay! You will learn all about them through your research. No prior knowledge or experience necessary.
Why aren’t you researching NJ-07 or other Congressional Districts?
The congressional districts will be very important in the 2018 election; for now, our research is focusing on the 2017 election. Furthermore, other groups like the Sister District Project and Swing Left are working on Congressional Districts within New Jersey and all around the country, so check them out.
What about the County level of government?
NJ’s counties are important, and we hope to pursue this research in the future. Please check back later.
Aren’t other groups doing this work?
Yes. A local group from Swing Left, dubbed Swing NJCD7 Left, is collecting data for NJ-07 and we are working to combine our efforts for the two counties at that overlap: Somerset and Hunterdon. Furthermore, we are also sharing information with Action Together NJ who is in the process of working with Code Blue, BlueWaveNJ, NJ 11th for Change, NJ7 Forward, and many other groups.
If you know of other groups interested in or engaged in research, please let us know. As long as our goals overlap, we will try to work together.
When will this data be ready?!
The Legislative Districts were handled first and a compilation of that data is now ready. We shared it with our members at our last meeting as well as several other groups who support our values. And coming up, we have an eager volunteer who is actively analyzing this LD data and we hope to release that analysis soon. As for the municipal data, we are still in the process of compiling it, cleaning it, and preparing it for analysis, a process that takes several weeks. If you are able to help out with this effort, please let us know.