A Means to coordinate Dean canvassing

On Monday, July 14, 2003, at 04:08 AM, Neil Drumm quoted bomont@arkansas.net:

MAP NEEDED for organizing canvassers, votr reg, etc
a map of state/county/city that local users could draw boundaries on the map - as desired (say with the mouse?) - like say, an area 4 blocks by 2 blocks, draw a box around it, and then type "Bill Smith" in the box, to show where he would go door to door to canvass.

Year 2000 Census Data

The Census Dept. delivers a LOT of info based on an address from this URL:
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/AGSGeoAddressServlet?_lang=en&_programYear=50&_treeId=420

You can select one of several overlapping geographic areas...

State: New York ... County: New York County ... ... County subdivision: Manhattan borough ... ... Census Tract: Census Tract 88 ... ... ... Block Group: Block Group 1 ... ... ... ... Block: B lock 1000 ... ... Voting District/Remainder: Voting District 6300090 ... Place: New York City ... Congressional District - 106th: Congressional District 14 (106th Congress) ... Congressional District - 108th: Congressional District 14 (108th Congress) ... State Legislative District, Upper Chamber: State Senate District 26 ... State Legislative District, Lower Chamber: State House District 63 ... School District, Elementary: MANHATTAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT 2 ... School District, Unified: NYC-CHANCELLOR'S OFFICE Metropolitan Statistical Area/Consolidated: New York--Northern New Jersey--Long Island, NY-NJ-CT-PA CMSA ... Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area: New York, NY PMSA Urban Area: New York--Newark, NY--NJ--CT Urbanized Area 3-Digit ZIP Code Tabulation Area: 100 3-Digit ZCTA ... 5-Digit ZIP Code Tabulation Area: 10017 5-Digit ZCTA

Using this interface:

Voting District Map

Here's an example of a Voting District Map for my district 6300090:

Obviously, we're denser than most here, but you get the idea how a base map might be generated.

Block Level Map

Here's an example of the smallest geographical area, "... ... ... Block Group: Block Group 1":

Blocks Within a Census Tract

The next mapping question is how to generate useful data from these pixels. I suggest that we identify unique blocks. In this case, I'm in New York State, New York County, Census Tract 88, Block 1000. It seems that blocks start with Block 1000 in the northeast corner of a Census Tract.

State: New York
... County: New York County
... ... County subdivision: Manhattan borough
... ... Census Tract: Census Tract 88
... ... ... Block Group: Block Group 1
... ... ... ... Block: Block 1000

Conclusion

I wonder if someone could do a JavaScript or a Java App that walks the user to their proper map, then asks the user to enter their name and their voting district and to enter the County, Census Tract and the Block number(s) they want to canvass.

Then the whole thing might be saved as data and a graphic at the canvasser's node/site (e.g., mycity.fordean.net). Naturally, we'd like to RSS this data up to the campaign, as our tool builds a quilt of canvassers covering every voting district in the country.

Certainly, let's not do anything worse than this approach.

And now Zack has *very* complete directions to my place....;-)