[OSGeo Africa] Election maps

[Peter Newmarch]

Adi,

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.

Great work, Fantastic stuff.

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.

When a party wins by the 65% upwards range, then it could be considered 
safe. 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.

Regards

Peter

Peter Newmarch
Professional Land Surveyor
4Y GeoInformatics Pty Ltd
Tel : +27 31 5642856
Fax : +27 31 5643074
Mobile     : +27 82 5705859
eMail     : newmarch at land-surveyors.com

On 23/03/2013 21:23, Chris wrote:
>      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:
>
>> Thanks Tim
>   
>> Yup - would you believe that the IEC publishes all their data
>> in gobsmacking detail? Have a look here: http://www.elections.org.za.
>> 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 www.demarcation.gov.za.
>   
>> Adi
>
>   
>> On 23 March 2013 20:35, Tim Sutton <tim at linfiniti.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Adi
>>>
>>> On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 6:03 PM, Adi Eyal <adi at burgercom.co.za> wrote:
>>>> 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
>>> contested
>>>> 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
>>> was
>>>> 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
>>> know
>>>> from the map what the individual wards are - only the municipality
>>>> they
>>> are
>>>> in. Finally, I don't know where most of these municipalities are
>>> situated so
>>>> 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
>>> but
>>>> might not be easy to achieve while still maintaining an uncluttered
>>> design.
>>>> Any advice would be appreciated. The small version of the image can be
>>> found
>>>> here: http://za.okfn.org/2013/03/23/battle-for-local-municipalities/.
>>> The
>>>> 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 :)).
>>>>
>>> Great project!
>>>
>>> Is the source data you used available somewhere publicly? If so can you
>>> provide a link to it?
>>>
>>> Regards
>>>
>>> Tim
>>>
>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>> Adi
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Adi Eyal
>>>> Data Specialist
>>>> phone: +27 78 014 2469
>>>> skype: adieyalcas
>>>> linkedin: http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Africa mailing list
>>>> Africa at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/africa
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Tim Sutton - QGIS Project Steering Committee Member (Release  Manager)
>>> ============================================== Visit
>>> http://linfiniti.com to find out about:
>>>   * QGIS programming services
>>>   * GeoDjango web development
>>>   * FOSS Consulting Services
>>> Skype: timlinux Irc: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net
>>> ==============================================
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Africa mailing list
>>> Africa at lists.osgeo.org
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/africa
>>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Adi Eyal
>> Data Specialist
>> phone: +27 78 014 2469
>> skype: adieyalcas
>> linkedin: http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal
>>
>
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>
>

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