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Getting Started

Before we start, some basic information about the platform.

BigQuery is Google's serverless, highly scalable, low cost enterprise data warehouse. It is different from a traditional database because instead of paying for a server to run all the time, you only pay when you analyze data, and the first 1 TB of query and 10 GB of data stored are completely free.

voter-warehouse maintains datasets in BigQuery for everyone to use.

Get setup with Google Cloud

To access the voter-warehouse data in BigQuery, you first need to # for a Google Cloud Platform account. This is free, and you get a further $300 credit for your first year. To do this:

  • # with your Google (e.g. Gmail) account.
  • Go to the Google Cloud Platform Console.
  • Create a project. This is your personal workspace; the name doesn't matter.
  • Enable billing. Open the console left side menu and select 'Billing'. Click the new billing account button, enter a name and your personal details, then click 'Submit and enable billing.'

While the datasets are maintained by the voter-warehouse project, any costs you incur in excess of the free tier are billed directly to you.

Get permission on the data

Because voter-warehouse includes personally-identifying data, the datasets are not open to the public. Email contact@voterdb.org to be permissioned, and provide information about the organizations you're affiliated with.

Run your first query

BigQuery, like most databases, uses a very common language called SQL (Structured Query Language). A simple query might be:

#standardSQL
SELECT FullName, Gender, DateOfBirth
FROM `voter-warehouse.Voter.Formatted`
LIMIT 10;

This means:

  • Tell BigQuery to use standard SQL syntax
  • Get the fields "FullName", "Gender", and "DateOfBirth"
  • From the table called "Voter.Formatted"
  • Up to a maximum of 10 rows.

To run this:

  • Go to BigQuery on the web at https://bigquery.cloud.google.com.
  • Click the red "Compose Query" button on the top left hand corner.
  • Copy and paste ALL of the code above into the Query box. Be sure to include the first line, "#standardSQL" - this tells BigQuery to use industry standard syntax.
  • Click "Run Query".

You should see results in the table at the bottom, which look like this:

Row FullName Gender DateOfBirth
1 Mary Smith F 1940-11-02
2 Jack Harken M 1937-03-17
3 Johanna Larsson F 1969-11-20
4 Oleg Klatshkov M 1956-08-12
5 Fei Fei Wong F 1948-10-18
6 Janet De Bono F 1955-01-15
7 Alessandra Greenberg F 1964-12-24
8 Brian Goonan M 1937-05-14
9 John F Miller M 1957-08-31
10 John Roberts M 1936-02-23

You made it!

To learn more about SQL, you can take the free online SQL Tutorial at w3schools.com.

You can learn more about how BigQuery works by following their Quickstart Tutorial.

Next step: read more about the Datasets.