Why Do Some Activist Records Have US Look-Up Values Displayed?

You may have come across an Activist Record or two and been left scratching your head as to why they have a UK address, but seemingly random US lookup data- such as Congressional District. This is nothing to worry about, and doesn't affect the rest of your data. 

So Why Are They There?

When an Activist is first added to Action Network their country is set to GB in most cases. Each Action Network Group has a default location, so when somebody is added to a Group, whether via an Action, Upload, or via communication between two or more different systems and a country is not selected they'll be assigned to the default country, which in most cases is the USA.

All GPEW Groups have their default location set to GB, so new activists will have their country set to GB, unless they choose another country.

When an Activist is identified as living in the UK, but have registered as being in another country we can correct this. However, the US look-up fields aren't overwritten with anything and so the data can still be seen in reports, or occasionally on the left-hand side of their Activist Record.

If you run a report and include the County field, for example, you may find that a number of your members have a value for this field, all of which will be US counties. However, as their country is correctly set to GB these fields won't usually appear on their Activist Record.

Are There Any Exceptions?

The short answer is yes. There are two main exceptions:

1. We do have Members and Supporters with genuine US addresses, and so these Activist's records will be populated with accurate US look-up values, assuming their address is correct.
   
2. Occasionally, a UK based Activist may erroneously choose the US as their country. Action Network will attempt to populate their US-based look-up values based on their address. In cases like this you can edit the Activist Record and change the country from US to GB. If you're unsure please don't hesitate to raise a support ticket.

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