Hi Peter<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 23 March 2013 21:42, Peter Newmarch <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:newmarch@land-surveyors.com" target="_blank">newmarch@land-surveyors.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div><font face="Times New Roman">Adi,<br>
<br>
I believe this election data has been around for years. The
demarcation board lists all the ward data, it used to be that
one had to ask for it specially.<br></font></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Actually I was really surprised at how good the data is. I knew about the shape files at <a href="http://www.demarcation.gov.za">www.demarcation.gov.za</a> (big up to them for those). The data on <a href="http://www.elections.gov.za">www.elections.gov.za</a> blew me away - every election in the past two decades, granularity to the level of polling station. Really amazing stuff - the IEC really gets transparency.</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"><div><font face="Times New Roman">
<br>
Great work, Fantastic stuff.<br></font></div></div></blockquote><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div><font face="Times New Roman">
<br>
Some comments - I don’t believe that your 10% criteria is a fair
reflection of the "safety" of that ward. I believe that a better
method would be to colour code the winning party, and write its
victory total (ie 55% of all votes) and its margin of victory in
percentage (by ward) - ie if the winning party got 55% and the
next party got 35%, then it won by 20 points.<br></font></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Isn't that more or less what I'm doing? The wards are colour coded by ANC, DA or Other (most parties don't really feature except COPE in the Northern Cape and IFP in KZN so I don't think it's unfair to bundle them together for the sake of simplicity). The "at risk" wards are shaded differently to show that the difference between 1st and 2nd place is less than 10%. </div>
<div><br></div><div>So, for example if the DA got 54% and the ANC got 46% then the difference is 8 points and I would label that ward as an "at risk" ward.</div><div><br></div><div>Actually adding the % votes would be useful but I don't see how to do it without cluttering the maps. Suggestions?</div>
<div><br></div><div>The one thing that I do think is missing is population. If you look at some of the municipalities, there are some massive wards and some small ones. The small ones are usually urban and centred around a town whereas the large ones are rural with relatively small populations. The maps as deceptive as you might see a large are labelled with one colour whereas the a tiny ward might have more impact when counting towards municipal elections (hope that makes sense)</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"><div><font face="Times New Roman">
<br>
When a party wins by the 65% upwards range, then it could be
considered safe. </font></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>yep - in fact anything above 55% is considered safe as the points difference can never be less than 10.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"><div><font face="Times New Roman">Of course their may be better ways, but with a
title aimed at 2016 I do think it should reflect percentage
victories to portray to people the possibilities in that data -
how safe it is, perhaps with a merger it could change, if people
of one party dont vote because of a viable alternative - who
would win etc... - a whole miriad of possibilities.<br></font></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>:) now you're getting seriously complex - in theory, a coalition could destroy a "safe" ward but I don't think you could easily place that information on a map (unless you have a suggestion)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Thanks for the comments</div><div><br></div><div>Adi</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"><div>
<font face="Times New Roman">
<br>
Regards<br>
<br>
Peter<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
</font></span></font><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<pre cols="72">Peter Newmarch
Professional Land Surveyor
4Y GeoInformatics Pty Ltd
Tel : <a href="tel:%2B27%2031%205642856" value="+27315642856" target="_blank">+27 31 5642856</a>
Fax : <a href="tel:%2B27%2031%205643074" value="+27315643074" target="_blank">+27 31 5643074</a>
Mobile : <a href="tel:%2B27%2082%205705859" value="+27825705859" target="_blank">+27 82 5705859</a>
eMail : <a href="mailto:newmarch@land-surveyors.com" target="_blank">newmarch@land-surveyors.com</a>
</pre></font></span><div><div class="h5">
On 23/03/2013 21:23, Chris wrote:<br>
</div></div></div><div><div class="h5">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre> I wonder if any politicians are statisticians
and
IF any understand attributes and spatial statistics ? ( and forecasting )
Could be a gold mine for someone with the necessary knowledge and skills
CM
On 23 Mar 2013 at 20:38, Adi Eyal wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Thanks Tim
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Yup - would you believe that the IEC publishes all their data
in gobsmacking detail? Have a look here: <a href="http://www.elections.org.za" target="_blank">http://www.elections.org.za</a>.
You'll find the results for all the elections that have taken place over
the past two decades or so, down to the voting station. I got the
shapefiles from <a href="http://www.demarcation.gov.za" target="_blank">www.demarcation.gov.za</a>.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Adi
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>On 23 March 2013 20:35, Tim Sutton <a href="mailto:tim@linfiniti.com" target="_blank"><tim@linfiniti.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Hi Adi
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 6:03 PM, Adi Eyal <a href="mailto:adi@burgercom.co.za" target="_blank"><adi@burgercom.co.za></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Hi All
I've been fiddling around the election data from the last municipal
elections and I've put together a graphic showing which wards were
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>contested
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>and which are strongholds. I defined contested as there being a less
than 10% difference in vote counts between the first and second place
winners.
I'm by no means a cartographer and this is one of my first projects so
I
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>was
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>hoping for comments about how one might improve the maps. I guess the
one problem is that even though you know that a ward is contested, you
don't know by how much. Also (and i'm not sure this is important) you
don't
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>know
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>from the map what the individual wards are - only the municipality
they
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>are
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>in. Finally, I don't know where most of these municipalities are
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>situated so
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>perhaps so sort of contextual map showing them in relation to the rest
of the country might be useful. Of course all of these things are
possible
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>but
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>might not be easy to achieve while still maintaining an uncluttered
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>design.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Any advice would be appreciated. The small version of the image can be
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>found
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>here: <a href="http://za.okfn.org/2013/03/23/battle-for-local-municipalities/" target="_blank">http://za.okfn.org/2013/03/23/battle-for-local-municipalities/</a>.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>The
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>complete poster is also available as pdf linked to on the site.
Hopefully this sort of question is not frowned upon in this forum (if
it helps, everything here was produced with open source tools :)).
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>Great project!
Is the source data you used available somewhere publicly? If so can you
provide a link to it?
Regards
Tim
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Thanks
Adi
--
Adi Eyal
Data Specialist
phone: <a href="tel:%2B27%2078%20014%202469" value="+27780142469" target="_blank">+27 78 014 2469</a>
skype: adieyalcas
linkedin: <a href="http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal" target="_blank">http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal</a>
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>--
Tim Sutton - QGIS Project Steering Committee Member (Release Manager)
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>--
Adi Eyal
Data Specialist
phone: <a href="tel:%2B27%2078%20014%202469" value="+27780142469" target="_blank">+27 78 014 2469</a>
skype: adieyalcas
linkedin: <a href="http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal" target="_blank">http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal</a>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>Adi Eyal<br>Data Specialist<br>phone: +27 78 014 2469<br>skype: adieyalcas<br>linkedin: <a href="http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal" target="_blank">http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal</a><br>
<br>