Unlike existing approaches to the study of ethnic politics, this article argues that the political competition for ethnic votes in modern democracies is programmatic (i.e. distinguishable by its focus on issues and policies), much like the competition for voting blocs defined as based on class or gender. Analysing ethnic appeals in this manner makes them suitable for the type of quantification and comparative analyses now standard in the estimations of policy positions on a range of other issues. Once the policy concerns of ethnic communities are known, scaling and scoring them becomes possible, paving the way for quantification and rigorous comparative work. Drawing on content analysis of speeches and manifestos delivered in democracies over the past decades, the article identifies a list of political positions reflective of appeals made to ethnic communities. Further, it derives and validates two indices of ethnic campaigning using data from the Comparative Manifestos Project. The measures are shown to be more robust and sensitive to nuance than existing classifications and can be readily applied to testing various hypotheses regarding the political competition for ethnic votes in democracies.