Voting District Project

Voting District (VTD) Project GUPS User’s Guide Addendum: VTD Verification
The Voting District Project has two distinct parts – initial delineation, which is referred to as VTD, and
verification, referred to as VTDV. If you are submitting VTD boundaries as part of the 2020 Redistricting
Data Program (RDP) for the first time for a county, that is an initial delineation. You will not need the
information contained in this addendum, which explains verifying boundaries already submitted. If you
are performing an initial delineation, please refer to the Voting District Project GUPS User’s Guide.
During verification, you have the opportunity to review the voting district boundaries you initially
submitted as part of the 2020 Redistricting Data Program (RDP), now referred to as the Census Bureau’s
“current VTDs”, against your own reference layer, which you can import into the VTDV GUPS. This
addendum will explain how to start a VTD Verification Project and explain how to use the tools
specifically designed for VTD Verification. All other tools and functionality remain unchanged from the
VTD GUPS provided to you for initial delineation, with the exception of changes documented in the
Voting District Project GUPS User’s Guide Section 3 – New Tools in GUPS.

1.0 Starting a GUPS Verification Project
If you submitted VTD updates for a county in your state during the initial delineation period, when
starting a GUPS verification project, you should select Voting District Project Verification as the
program in which you are participating. See Table A-1 for instructions on starting a VTDV project.

Table A-1 : How to Start a VTD Verification GUPS Project
Step
Step 1

Action and Result
In the Map Management dialog box, use the drop-down menu next to the Program
field to select your program, ‘Voting District Project Verification’.
In the State field, use the drop-down menu to select your state or type the name of
the state. The scroll bar to the right allows you to move up and down the list of states.
Choose your State. Repeat these steps to choose the County to update.

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Step 2

After you select the working county, the GUPS asks you to specify the location from
which you want to pull the county’s (or county equivalent’s) shapefiles. The Select
Data Folder, Directory or Location box opens.

GUPS will only ask you to specify a location the first time you open a county’s
shapefile. When you come back to work on the same county again, the project will
automatically load, even if you made no changes in your first session.
Step 3

In the Select Data Folder, Directory or Location box drop-down menu, select the
location from which you wish to pull the file. We recommend using the Census Web
Option.

Step 4

Once you click on ‘Census Web’, the shapefiles for the county begin to load and
progress is displayed by a blue striped bar (color may vary), with the percentage of
the upload completed displayed to the right.

If you select the CD/DVD option, GUPS will ask you to insert the data CD/DVD
provided by the Census Bureau and click OK. The shapefiles will download from the
CD/DVD.
If you select the My Computer option, GUPS will ask you to navigate to the
location where the shapefiles you downloaded from the FTP site are stored.
(See the Voting District Project GUPS User’s Guide for instructions on
downloading files from the FTP site.)
Step 5

As GUPS loads the data, it unzips and copies the files to a folder that was created
on your computer’s home directory (i.e., C:\\GUPSGIS\gupsdata\VTDV19\shape)
during the installation process. It then pulls the shapefiles into the GUPS.

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Step 6

Once the files are loaded, the Import Working File dialog box opens asking ‘Which
reference dataset would you like to import?’
GUPS VTDV has a verification tool that will run a comparison between a VTD reference
layer you import against the VTDs the Census Bureau collected and processed into our
database during the initial delineation, labeled as VTD_current in the GUPS project. If you
have a reference dataset you want to import to run the comparison, select “Import VTD
Shapefile” (if the dataset is in a shapefile format), or select “Import VTD Tabular
Equivalency File” if your reference dataset is a text file. You will then be asked to map the
fields in your reference dataset to the standard field names used in GUPS. This process is
very similar to the process you may have chosen to use during initial delineation, if you
imported your own VTD reference file to create your submission. Please see Sections 7.3
and 7.4 in the Voting District Project User’s Guide for information on importing the
tabulation equivalency file or shapefile and mapping the fields.
If you do not have a reference layer to import, select “Verification without Reference Layer”
from the drop down menu.

Your county project will open. If you imported a VTD reference layer, you will see it
shown in the table of contents (named vtdreference_, where ss = the 2digit state code and ccc=the 3-digit county code) and displayed in the map view.

2.0 Using the VTDV Verification Tool
If you have imported a VTD reference layer, you can use the VTD verification tool to validate the current
voting districts that were collected and processed by the Census Bureau during initial delineation,
against your imported reference layer. The VTD Verification tool will provide feedback and notify you of
instances where:
1. The list of current Census VTDs, those you supplied during initial delineation, contains a VTD
that is not contained in the imported reference VTD layer.
2. Specific faces in the current Census VTD layer are missing from the imported VTD reference
layer, and/or

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3. Faces assigned to a specific voting district in the current Census VTD layer belong to a
separate voting district in the reference layer.

Click on the VTD Verification Tool, found on the VTD toolbar, to run the tool.

Once the Tool runs, a VTD Verification Tool window will appear, and you may notice a crosshatching
pattern that appears over parts of the working county. This pattern symbolizes areas where there is a
discrepancy between the current Census and the imported reference VTD layers. There are three
possible types of errors that may appear in the window. It is also possible that there will be no errors
that fall out.

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In the VTD Verification Tool window, you can use the “Errors” drop-down list to toggle between just one
type of error fallout, or seeing all three types of errors, or criteria failures. Each type of criteria failure is
described below.

2.1 Census VTD not in VTD Ref Errors
This error is reported when the current Census VTD layer (vtdcurrent_ where ss = state
code and ccc = county code), contains a VTD that is not in your imported reference file.
The example below contains eight errors of this type. The first error listed in the Criterial Fail
window reports that the current Census VTD shapefile contains CASS PRECINCT 20-02, but that
VTD is not found in the VTD reference layer.

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a. Click on the error in the Criteria Fail window to zoom to it on the map. In the map view,
CASS PRECINCT 20-02 is displayed on the vtdcurrent_38017 layer (blue fill), but the
same area in the reference VTD shapefile is VTD 20-01 (labeled in red text). (Note: the
crosshatching layer has been turned off in the images below for easier viewing.)

b. If the current Census VTD layer needs to be updated, click the Fix button next to the
error. The Modify Area Feature Tool will open. You can use the tools in the Modify Area
Feature Toolbox to modify the area and attributes in the vtdcurrent layer to match the
reference VTD. In this example, the problem is actually an incorrect name. Use the
Modify Attributes tool in the Modify Area Feature toolbox to update the name of the
VTD in the vtdcurrent layer. (See Section 8.2 in the Voting District Project User’s Guide
for instructions on how to use the tools in the Modify Area Feature Toolbox.)

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2.2 Missing VTD Ref
This error is reported when the imported VTD reference layer does not cover all the faces (area)
of the county. The Census vtdcurrent layer, has assigned the area to a VTD.
The example below contains many errors of this type. The first error listed in the Criterial Fail
window reports that face 259070640 is unassigned in the VTD reference layer.
a. Click on the error in the Criteria Fail window to highlight and zoom to the face on the map.
The face is assigned to CASS PRECINCT 44-01 in the vtdcurrent shapefile.
b. Review the face to see if you agree with the VTD the face is assigned to in the vtdcurrent
shapefile.
i.
If you do not agree, open the Modify Area Features Toolbox and use the tools
to assign the face to the appropriate VTD. (See Section 8.2 in the Voting District
Project User’s Guide for instructions on how to use the tools in the Modify Area
Feature Toolbox.)
ii.

If you do agree, check the box in the “Ignore” column in the criteria fail list, and
when you refresh the error list (using the “refresh” button at the bottom of the
list), the error will not display again.

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2.3 VTD Mismatch
This error is reported when a face is assigned to a specific voting district in the Census Bureau’s
vtdcurrent layer, but belongs to a different voting district in the reference layer.
The example below shows several errors of this type. The first error listed in the Criteria Fail list
reports that VTD 022-08 22-08 does not match VTD 022-07 22-07 in the reference layer for face
208745003. (Note VTD 022-07 is the VTD name and 22-07 is the code. The error report includes
the name and code for the VTD, and may look odd on the report if the name and code are
similar.)
a. Click on the error in the criteria fail list to highlight and zoom to the face on the map.

b. Review the face and determine to which VTD it should be assigned. In this example, you
need to determine if it should remain assigned to 22-08, as it currently is in the vtdcurrent
layer, or if it needs to be reassigned to 22-07 as it is in the reference layer.
a. If the face should remain assigned to 22-08, as it currently is in the vtdcurrent layer,
check the ignore box to the right of the error listing in the criteria fail list. When you
refresh the error list (using the “refresh” button at the bottom of the list), the error
will not display again.
b. If the face should be in VTD 22-07 as it is in the reference layer, click on the “Match
Ref” button to the right of the error listing in the criteria fail list. GUPS will reassign
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the face in the vtdcurrent layer, and the button will now be called “Matched.” Note
you will not see the change applied until you click “Save Changes” or “Refresh” at
the bottom of the VTD Verification Tool window.

c. If the face should remain in 22-08, check the Ignore box to the right of the error
listing. When you rerun the VTD Verification Tool, or click on the “Refresh” button at
the bottom of the Criteria Fall window, the error will no longer appear.
You also have the option to assign all the faces in the criteria fail list to the reference layer all at once, or
ignore all errors at once and leave them assigned to the vtdcurrent layer, by clicking on the “Match All”
or “Ignore All” buttons at the bottom of the window.

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If a reference VTD does not exist for faces in the current VTD layer, GUPS cannot “match” it and an error
will pop up prompting you to create an entry in the current VTD layer using the modify area feature tool.

Clicking “Refresh” will save the session, and refresh the VTD Verification Tool.
Clicking “Save Changes” will save the changes made in the current session.

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