Net Democratic Vote

A “net vote” is produced as a direct result of a program. It is a vote that would not have been cast otherwise.

Many programs emphasize the total number of votes cast by their target audience as proof of their impact, but often a significant portion of those individuals would have voted regardless of whether the particular program was run or not.

To determine how many “net votes” a program produced, we calculate the number of votes the program yielded that would not have been cast otherwise through experimental tests that measure the program’s effects (for a more detailed explanation, see randomized controlled trials).

For partisan programs, we then calculate the number of “net Democratic votes” among the net votes. Usually, the voters that a program mobilizes will not all cast their votes for the Democratic candidate.

For example, if a program generates 10 voters who otherwise would not have cast a ballot, but only 6 vote for the Democrat while 4 vote for the Republican, the net gain for the Democrats (“net Democratic votes”) is only 2 votes.

The chart below illustrates this calculation for a program that sends vote-by-mail applications to a population of voters.