Electronic Files

We provide voter registration data on a variety of electronic media:  CD, Zip disk, and, if the file is small enough, via email.  Due to security concerns, we do not use requester-supplied media such as USB flash drives.

Our data is exported from DIMSnet, our voter registration program, as ASCII text (no word processing characters, one record per line) in a flat file or comma- or tab-delimited format.  Flat files have no space between data fields and can be difficult to use even with a record layout that shows field names and length of data in each field.  Comma-delimited files have a comma separating each field while tab-delimited files have fields separated by tabs.  Both delimited formats have a leading or header record with field names.

You also have choices about the voter records you want:

• All eligible voters (countywide)
• Voters in a particular district
• Voters in specified precincts (Note:  We establish precincts for statewide elections and consolidate precincts for local elections.  The precinct numbers may change from election to election.  These precinct numbers may differ from our standard voter registration reports.)
• Permanent vote by mail voters
• Exclude permanent vote by mail voters
• Voters in a specified political party
• When we get close to an election, you can ask for voters who first received sample ballots
• Voters registered in a particular date range
• Voters with their vote history for the past 20 elections or targeted elections (the last 20 elections are for all elections in Solano County, including special elections)
• Voters who have requested a vote by mail ballot (within 30 days of an election) and voters who have returned a vote by mail ballot (this data is updated approximately twice a week)

It is often useful to also request a Precinct/District Inventory file which helps to identify districts in each precincts and thus which voters are eligible to vote in a particular district.

Keep in mind that file sizes can be very large.  We have over 174,000 registered voters and a countywide file with vote history for 20 elections is over 66Mb.  Users need Microsoft Access or another database program to deal with large files.  Excel, for example, has a maximum record limit of 65536 rows and is further constrained by the number of fields (columns) it can handle.  You may also find that some computers are not able to deal with large databases due to slow processing speed or lack of memory.  We are happy to discuss your needs and intended uses of our data, but we cannot provide application, programming, or computer assistance.

Voter Lists (Hardcopy)

General Purpose

We also provide printed voter lists.  As with electronic files, you have choices about what data you want:

• All eligible voters (countywide)
• Voters in a particular district
• Voters in specified precincts
• Residence address, mailing address, or both
• Telephone numbers
• Permanent absentee voter status
• Date of birth
• Vote history
• All political parties or a specified party
• For a specified election, all voters, voters who voted, or voters who did not vote
• Voters registered in a particular date range

You may also request that we sort the voters:

• Alpha order by name
• Alpha order by name within a precinct
• By streets in a precinct
• Alpha order by ZIP code and name
• Alpha order by party and name
• Alpha order by birth date and name

These lists can grow to hundreds of pages depending on information requested and districts requested.  We require that the setup fee be paid on request of the list.  Page charges must be paid prior to receiving the list.

Walking Lists

Candidates and campaigns sometimes request lists of voters sorted by streets to expedite going door-to-door to meet voters.