Adding Elections and Election Stages
Usually you can find elections on the Secretary of State or State Board of Election websites. It is not recommended to add Elections based on other sources other than State Government websites.
Elections should be added once you confirm the existence of an election on the state government website. Do not add candidates to an election until you confirm these elections, election stages, and NPAT form assignments have been added properly. All office types are entered as separate elections.
- In Admin, under "Data," select "Elections"
- Confirm that the election is not already in admin (make sure that you are looking at the correct year)
- Select "Add New" at the top of the page
- Select the appropriate office type and state. Enter the year of the election and check off the special election if it is. Verify with the PCT Research Lead that the proper NPAT form is attached, or, if the NPAT form has not been created yet, that the proper logic is used. If adding a Statewide or State Judicial election or a Special Election, make sure to remove the NPAT form. see: Understanding NPAT Forms
- SAVE
- Find this appropriate election/year on the list of elections.
- Select "Office Type" and verify the information. If it is a special election, add the districts involved in the election on the right hand side.
- Select "Stage(s)" for the appropriate election/year on the list of elections.
- Select "Add New"
- Select the appropriate "State," the first scheduled "Election Stage" and enter the date of the election.
- Do NOT select "NPATs mailed"
- SAVE
- If there are any other known stages for an election, add these stages now. Primary Runoffs and General Runoffs should not be added until confirmed with SOS.
- If other office types are up for election in that same election, be sure to add them as a separate election.
- If there are two or more simultaneous special elections of the same office type, make sure to create a separate election for each office type. (Ex. If Virginia SH75 and VA SH76 is having a special election, create two separate elections. Same goes if one election is in the State Senate, the other in the State House.)
- Have at least one other person check the accuracy of the elections added. In particular, they should ensure all elections and election stages are present, dates of election are accurate, and NPAT forms are correct.
If this is done correctly, you will be able to add candidates to this election. See: Creating Candidate Lists for further instructions.
When you are adding a special election, make sure to remove the NPAT form from the election. As a general rule, we do not send the Political Courage Test to candidates who are running in special elections. Always check with the Elections Director or the PCT Administrator on whether they should administer the Political Courage Test to the special election.
Changing NPAT Forms
In the event that an NPAT form association to an election needs to be updated, this can be done on that election in admin - However, any candidates already entered into that election will note have their NPAT form changed. To change this, you can either use IT for large bulk changes in NPAT associations, or use the trick below for smaller groups of candidates.
You can change the candidate’s NPAT form, by changing the election that they are associated with manually. For example, if you wanted to change a candidate’s Congressional NPAT Form, change the officelevel of the election that the candidate’s associated to a different officelevel, and hit save. Then revert the election info to the original officelevel (Congressional in this example). Following this will reassociate the new NPAT form to the candidate, while not losing any data associated with that election_candidate_id (such as address info)
