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Aristotle (formerly "Legislative Demographic Services")


http://aristotle.com/


Project Vote Smart has a paid contract with Aristotle for the provision of zip-to-district data.

Contact information with Aristotle is at OtherContacts.


Subscription

The subscription is annual and expires around the end of June each year. In 2014, the cost was $8,640 for the year. We were offered a two-year term at that time with a 10% discount but declined in the hopes that a better provider would emerge in 2015.

In 2018, we did take the option of a 2-year term for a 10% discount and two free months. At that point, no better cost or quality providers appeared to be worthwhile from our research. This was renewed in 2020 through October 31, 2022.

Each year, around renewal time, we will explore if there are cheaper alternatives of comparable quality, or if any provider has additional data. Other known providers as of 2015

API users are authorized to look up legislators using zip to district mapping (see letter on hard file from 2009). They are not, however, allowed to download or resell the data in bulk.


Data
As of 2014, Aristotle did not provide statewide districts, state judicial districts, or local district matching.

Updates are provided by Aristotle quarterly via email to webmaster@, geeks@, and the IT Director. These come in the form of the District Match Data Set (DMDS) file. These should be imported by IT team (import script appears to be zip2district.pl in /utilities).

Zip2District

This data is the current district information contained by the DMDS. This reflects current officials in office.

An example Mantis ticket of a regular update: http://mantis.votesmart.org/view.php?id=7925

Zip2Redistrict

Redistricting information - for upcoming elections - is not reflected in the zip2district information. This data reflects the geography of future elections, not current offices.

Aristotle will email a one-off redistricting file for a state that has been redistricted. This data can be loaded into zip2redistrict. Typically, the Elections Research team will also notice redistricting.

Our tools will prefer zip2redistrict for upcoming elections, which will allow users to enter a zip code and get the correct candidates for an upcoming election.

An example Mantis ticket of a redistricting update: http://mantis.votesmart.org/view.php?id=8877

State Border Zip Codes

It came to our attention through an API subscriber in the spring of 2019 that some zip codes that fall on state borders can incorporate data for multiple states. According to Aristotle, there are a few potential causes:

1. The address is being serviced by an adjacent post office. For example a West Virginia address may be serviced by, and have the zip code for, an Ohio Post Office due to access is from Ohio
2. New development or zip code. The new zip+4 is assigned at the center of the 5-digit zip code
3. Undocumented changes to the district boundaries. These are referred to as “Technical changes”
4. Zip Code delivery point is geographically located different than the physical location. Occurs for mail drop locations.
5. Self-serve post offices for less populated areas
6. Errant geocoded latitude/longitude of the zip+4

This query will let you see the zip codes that are pulling data for at least two states:

SELECT zip5
FROM
(Select zip5, COUNT(DISTINCT(statecode))
FROM zip2district
GROUP BY zip5) x
WHERE count > 1

The number of zip codes affected will fluctuate with Aristotle data imports, so it's worth running this after new imports.

Resources


Use Policy and Permissions

This is governed by our contract with them, as well as some supplemental emails. This information is kept on file by the Office Manager.

Implementation Notes


CategoryExternalDataSources
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