[OSGeo Africa] Election maps

Peter Newmarch newmarch at land-surveyors.com
Sat Mar 23 13:51:27 PDT 2013


Adi,

Perhaps one could aggregate the population data and overall vote on the 
RHS of each picture ?

As a side issue, it would be interesting to see what the map would look 
like if the opposition where to combine votes.

Great work.

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 22:31, Adi Eyal wrote:
> Hi Peter
>
> On 23 March 2013 21:42, Peter Newmarch <newmarch at land-surveyors.com 
> <mailto:newmarch at land-surveyors.com>> wrote:
>
>     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.
>
>
> Actually I was really surprised at how good the data is. I knew about 
> the shape files at www.demarcation.gov.za 
> <http://www.demarcation.gov.za> (big up to them for those). The data 
> on www.elections.gov.za <http://www.elections.gov.za> 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.
>
>
>     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.
>
>
> 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%.
>
> 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.
>
> Actually adding the % votes would be useful but I don't see how to do 
> it without cluttering the maps. Suggestions?
>
> 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)
>
>
>     When a party wins by the 65% upwards range, then it could be
>     considered safe.
>
>
> yep - in fact anything above 55% is considered safe as the points 
> difference can never be less than 10.
>
>     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.
>
>
> :) 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)
>
> Thanks for the comments
>
> Adi
>
>
>     Regards
>
>     Peter
>
>     Peter Newmarch
>     Professional Land Surveyor
>     4Y GeoInformatics Pty Ltd
>     Tel :+27 31 5642856  <tel:%2B27%2031%205642856>
>     Fax :+27 31 5643074  <tel:%2B27%2031%205643074>
>     Mobile     :+27 82 5705859  <tel:%2B27%2082%205705859>
>     eMail     :newmarch at land-surveyors.com  <mailto: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 fromwww.demarcation.gov.za  <http://www.demarcation.gov.za>.
>>       
>>>     Adi
>>       
>>>     On 23 March 2013 20:35, Tim Sutton<tim at linfiniti.com>  <mailto:tim at linfiniti.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>>>     Hi Adi
>>>>
>>>>     On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 6:03 PM, Adi Eyal<adi at burgercom.co.za>  <mailto: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  <tel:%2B27%2078%20014%202469>
>>>>>     skype: adieyalcas
>>>>>     linkedin:http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>     _______________________________________________
>>>>>     Africa mailing list
>>>>>     Africa at lists.osgeo.org  <mailto: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 atfreenode.net  <http://freenode.net>
>>>>     ==============================================
>>>>     _______________________________________________
>>>>     Africa mailing list
>>>>     Africa at lists.osgeo.org  <mailto:Africa at lists.osgeo.org>
>>>>     http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/africa
>>>>
>>>     -- 
>>>     Adi Eyal
>>>     Data Specialist
>>>     phone:+27 78 014 2469  <tel:%2B27%2078%20014%202469>
>>>     skype: adieyalcas
>>>     linkedin:http://za.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adi/Eyal
>>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     Africa mailing list
>>     Africa at lists.osgeo.org  <mailto:Africa at lists.osgeo.org>
>>     http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/africa
>>
>>
>
>
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>     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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