GEOG 376 FINAL PROJECT Nicole Stotz Spring 2010

GEOG 376 FINAL PROJECT Nicole Stotz Spring 2010

Purpose � � The FEC provides campaign finance data online for election cycles 1976 -present Contributions totaling $200 must be reported For the 2008 elections, who donated what, and to who? Parsed data for San Joaquin County, and attempted to represent this on a zip code level.

Data � � � FEC individual contributions and candidate files for 2008 California ZTCA file from Census Bureau (like a zipcode, but is linked to demographic data) San Joaquin County shapefile from Cal. Atlas

Data Setup � � � FEC provides a pdf on dealing with their data It was imported into Access, and exported as a formatted csv Surprise, lots of errors! Surprise, huge files! Surprise, my computer couldn’t handle processing… 20+ minutes processing times were common

How do I fix this? � � � A custom dictionary replace script was the answer No NULL values, extra commas, weird names, overpunch characters There is no apparent use for overpunch characters, the FEC only tells how to get rid of them

Replace script

Creating Fields and Table

Read CSV into a GDB

Replace overpunch characters…

Adding NULL values…

Joining tables, creating San Joaquin contributions table

Results � � � Created 3 scripts in total – to parse text files, and to join them together Was not able to graphically represent my queries Was able to get a subset of 1700+ records of San Joaquin contributions for 2008

Weird Result � � � While parsing the California subset individual contributions, I couldn’t find individual donations to Mc. Cain Either all individual donations in California were under $200, and not reported Or major committees collected these donations Or no one in California really liked Mc. Cain enough to make a large donation Or my data was somehow messed up (this one is most likely)