Merged at MCD Group level.
Because the 1984 precinct definitions differed substantially from those in 1986-1990, and because a common MCD Group structure would have unnecessarily restricted the number of valid groups in the 1986- 1990 data, we defined MCD Groups separately for 1984 and 1986-1990.
This state is notable for having a very unusual pattern of 'exception' counties. It is NOT true here that the same counties are exceptions for each year. RATHER, some counties that are exceptions in 1990 are fine in 1986, and vice-versa. Every county that is an exception in at least one year is identified in the exceptions file READ WV.MGE, along with the years in which it is an exception (if no year is listed, it is an exception in all years). The question is whether to implement this exceptions file, using the lowest common denominator approach, in order to merge all four years together at the end, or whether to instead treat each year on its own to get the maximum number of MCDGRP units for each year.
At the moment, the data reflect the first technique, and but can potentially be changed to the latter if the number of MCDGRPs from the former is too close to the number of counties. Having done this, the result is 80 MCDgrps from 55 counties, where initially the number of MCDGRPs was 180.
If one eliminates 1984 from the grouping, then 102 MCDgroups are usable, with 1984 only 80. Thus, 1984 is excluded from the grouping. The merge only includes 1986-1990. A second set of files were created based on 1984 only and it has 85 MCDGRPs.
The 1986-90 merge process used the filenames as they are specified in the programs sheet.
The 1984-only process, programs and output, is all in wv 84.mcd, wv 84.mge, wv 84.mgl, wv 84.mgs -> PLVDKEY input and output
The 1984-only final merge files are in the regular WV directory, as MG WV 84.SD2 and .SSD.
The same solution was used, e.g., for South Carolina.
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