I have been recently studying proprietary voter files and data. While I know that voter files are for the most part public (paid or free), I am confused as to how companies match this data to other data.
For example, the voter files (public) never reveal who you voted for, or your behavioral attributes, and so on. So how do companies that sell this "enhanced" data match every "John Smith" to other data. How can they say that they have a profile on every voter? Wouldn't that require huge data collection? or are there models that simply do that job for them?
Hi Melissa. I don'. Do you mean private opinion surveys ? They just ask who the interviewee voted for or who they intend to vote for. If I misunderstood your question and it doesn't have anything to do with my answer, I'm really sorry.
I have never been involved in political data analyses, but have done analytics on entities in the field of science (with fixed data points) part of Data Science Field. As far as I understand if they collect enough data points for a specific person they can determine with high accuracy who the person will vote for. (I would call it more of a guess then a prediction) Difference is People change opinions all the time daily, so the data points are inaccurate and it is more of a guess I would say like betting.
(Data Science in other fields like Medicine is not a guess since Data Points are fixed) In other Fields like Science Data Points for Entities are Fixed so you can say with high accuracy. Cambridge Analytics had some papers on it maybe search their website if they have one or white papers, not in the field so have no sources.
Regards, Alex
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