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For several years, the commonly-accepted but unofficial threshold for inclusion in the infobox of U.S. election articles has been receiving 5% of the vote. I am not aware of the exact discussion that established this policy (a link would be appreciated), but I will cite some similar past discussions: this one from 2010 regarding inclusion based on poll results, and two at Talk:United States Senate election in Illinois, 2010 relating to the same topic.
This issue was brought up by a recent RfC at the talk page of United States presidential election in the District of Columbia, 2016 regarding the inclusion of Donald Trump in the infobox. Trump received 4% of the vote in the District.
Here are the options:
Question 1
What should be the standard for inclusion in the infobox of U.S. election articles?
Question 2
If only one candidate meets the yet-to-be-defined-threshold, should the second-place contender be included?
pinging @ Dennis Bratland: as he provided the options for question 1.
MB298 ( talk) 01:46, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Place your opinions below. You may vote once for question 1 and once for question 2. For general discussion about this RfC, place your comments in the "Discussion" section below.
I was filling in some data on Virginia House of Delegates election, 2017 from the Virginia Department of Elections database. It seems to me, though, that rather than looking everything up by hand, wouldn't it be quicker (and improve accuracy) to put in a FOIA request and get the whole database, and import that data into Wikidata? There are 69 election years' worth of data just for the House of Delegates elections, so it seems like it would be worthwhile to automate the process, if possible. Is this in the cards? N I H I L I S T I C ( talk) 02:41, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
What naming convention do we want to use for Virginia Senate districts? Virginia Senate, District 40, or Virginia's 40th Senate district, or 40th Senate of Virginia district, or something else? — Preceding unsigned comment added by N I H I L I S T I C ( talk • contribs) 20:18, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
For a while I've been intending to update French legislative election results on Wikipedia by providing results tables for all elections dating back to 1958 on constituency articles. I'd also like to create results articles on a departmental basis for each legislative election as well, though, to essentially provide a "results breakdown" by constituency for every department. This is already standard practice on the French Wikipedia, e.g. fr:Élections législatives de 2012 dans le Nord. The alternative would be to create a "mega-article" for the results from all 577 constituencies – I've got a (rather incomplete) sandbox lying around which essentially acts as one for the 2012 legislative elections, but it alone is 1.5 MB, so I personally think it would be more permissible or ideal to provide such breakdowns on a departmental basis only. Any particularly strong feelings about this? Mélencron ( talk) 23:35, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
There is a discussion on whether plurality voting should be singled out for being an unfair voting system in a proposed new introduction of the electoral system article. As it's a bit of a stalemate between three editors at present, extra input would be welcome here. Cheers, Number 5 7 22:30, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
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Hi, I'm doing a bit of work on some local elections (in the United Kingdom), and have been pointed over here by the teahouse regarding this query, and was wondering what the best way to show rejected/spoilt ballots in the turnout figures was inside the election boxes - should I just add them to the total turnout figure and leave it at that or create and extra row for rejected ballots? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ballotboxworm ( talk • contribs) 12:39, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
I've started an RfC on Talk:voting method about the naming of that article. I apologize for reopening this issue, but I feel that the clarity of the evidence warrants it in this case. Homunq ( ࿓) 15:17, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm having problems with Template:Infobox Election at United Nations Security Council election, 2017. I can't get it to display the newly elected members of the council properly, and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Could someone here please have a look. Thanks. Sir Sputnik ( talk) 22:06, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
| ongoing = no
to show results.
PrimeHunter (
talk) 01:38, 3 June 2017 (UTC)It seems like in some cases, people want to remove almost all the prose from election articles and just have a bunch of data about endorsements, polling, fundraising, and results. Biographical information about the candidates, and information about the political controversies in the races, along with significant campaign events such as debates, gets eliminated.
Also, in articles about constituencies (e.g. districts), people sometimes want to eliminate almost all the prose and just have data about election results. Let's say there's a constituency that has had elections for the past 200 years. If you include information about the issues, controversies, and events of the most recent election, that gets removed as recentism. But of course, if people would keep adding this kind of information with each successive election, then 100 years from now, we would have 100 years worth of information about the constituency's political history. If that information gets removed every time, then 100 years from now, we still have nothing but results data. Compy book ( talk) 00:51, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I have been looking at Parliamentary election results in the UK, following the recent General Election (and occasionally filling in some details). There seems to be no consensus on how the '±' column should be completed if the relevant party (or individual independent) did not stand in the previous election. I would say, as a matter of common sense, that, if, say, Party A stood in 2017 and got 2.5% but did not stand in 2015, that marks a +2.5 on the previous figure, but many editors seem to put 'N/A' in the column instead. This seems less logical, but is there some general psephological convention being followed here? There really seems to be no consistency of approach. Ntmr ( talk) 15:41, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm beginning a project to clean up and correct old French election articles and have been having some trouble locating results of old elections. Right now I'm attempting to locate results of the 1973 legislative election; data.gouv.fr has 473 out of 490 constituencies, with the source being the CDSP. These numbers also correspond to the totals on the france-politique archive (hobbyists). The National Assembly also has published results for the 1973 legislatives which differ from the above, but I can't find the original source it cites. What is more, neither the French nor English articles on the topic seem to cite sources for the numbers they use (inserted into their articles in 2006) – which differ from both of the previous. Any help locating complete results (by nuance, with seat numbers, etc.) would be greatly appreciated. Mélen cron 15:39, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
I've been recently turning .png files into .svg ones for election box maps in Minnesota - gubernational, senate, presidential, etc. Have about 50 done so far. However, as I'm getting into very old results without exact county data, I have been using 2 colors to denote who won the country, instead of using different shades to denote the margin they won by. Here are 2 articles to explain what I mean.
When we have exact data - Minnesota gubernatorial election, 2002
Idea for no exact result maps - Minnesota gubernatorial election, 1990
The current maps for elections with no specific county data is Minnesota gubernatorial election, 1986, and I am trying to clean these maps up to our current standard. I bring this up because as I expand into other types of maps, I'd like to create a standard color scheme and format for all US maps without exact county data. What are your thoughts on this? I'd like to hear others opinions before I venture too far down this road. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PeterMGrund ( talk • contribs) 04:36, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
One of the prime arguments I've heard in favor of keeping these inadequate, misleading maps is that they are "standard". They're everywhere. But one has do ask, how did they become standard? It's because of decisions like this right here. I would strongly discourage putting time into making this type of map, and if another editor wants to put a better map on an article, it's harmful to tell them they can't because 100 other articles use these easily made but useless filled area maps.
I really like the features of SVG, but I've also noticed that the existence of an SVG graphic biases editors towards using that graphic over a raster graphic image, even if the jpg or png is more accurate or more relevant. Converting an inferior map into SVG has a indicate to set it in stone as the "standard" and makes it harder to improve. SVG, sadly and ironically, becomes a hindrance to making the encyclopedia incrementally better. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 20:28, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
Discussion of New Hampshire fraud allegations over at Talk:United States presidential election, 2016#More allegations of vote tampering. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 22:41, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
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The 1971 election for 212 parliamentary seats is missing 11 seats in the table: 7 from PSB(BRUX) and 4 from PVV/PLP.
/info/en/?search=Belgian_general_election,_1971
There's a discussion around the infobox for the recent New Zealand election and what parties to include here: Talk:New_Zealand_general_election,_2017#Sixth_Party. Input from more people would be valuable. Bondegezou ( talk) 14:21, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
I have spoken with others interested in promoting the visibility of local and state elections. Citizens would be well served by an easily linked and browsable project that provides information on elected offices along with their filing deadlines and requirements. Some current pages on these municipalities exist, but they are not entirely consistent, general election information is lacking, and specific information on how to run for an office is nowhere to be found (in my admittedly limited search thus far). I am currently researching formats and templates and would greatly appreciate feedback from this community on how to approach this.
My initial thought is to create an entirely new set of pages specifically dedicated to providing this sort of information, organized by state and then county, city, township, or other local government forms. After creating this content, relevant links and summaries can be added to existing pages on the municipalities. I'm looking at the U.S. Counties template as a place to start the organization of the project. Tgillet1 ( talk) 05:44, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
Is there a particular reason that for elections in some countries, the "general election" article lists both the presidential and legislative election results on the same article if they are held at the same time? I can understand the argument for it, but it would seem much more consistent – and clearer – with other presidential/legislative election articles if each had its own article, since each is its own unique topic, after all; e.g., this is the case in Turkey, Argentina, Ecuador, and quite a few other countries. Notably, when it comes to the U.S., the legislative (House of Representatives) and presidential election articles are separate, though they coincide on a 4-year beat. Mélencron ( talk) 19:01, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Why is it that pretty much every single polling table on elections articles on Wikipedia violates WP:SALORDER by being organized in reverse-chronological order?! As far as I can tell, there is no compelling, policy-based reason for this, and it seems to be a case "they've been done this way since the beginning, so why change them?..." kind of thing. Does anyone else see a problem with polling tables violating WP:SALORDER for no particularly good reason, esp. in articles for past elections where these polling lists are now stable? (I'm wondering if this might be a job for a bot, if consensus can be established that these lists should follow SALORDER like every other chronological list on the project...) -- IJBall ( contribs • talk) 22:23, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
As I've been slowly converting the thousands of United States electoral maps currently in .jpeg/.png format to .svg, I've been coming across many inconsistencies, even with maps made in 2016. For example, when comparing 2016 presidential election maps to 2016 senate election maps, an entirely different color scheme is being used, as well as a lack of color keys.
Should we streamline our electoral map making template for the United States to include all relevant elections (President, Senate, and any other state-wide election)? If a different map is better suited, then of course use that, this is just to streamline the process.
Peter M. Grund ( talk) 02:16, 6 November 2017 (UTC)PeterMGrund
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but I want to thank you for your efforts on this, and if you are continuing with the conversion project I'd want you to use whatever makes it easiest for you and results in the most consistency across articles. Of the two above I prefer the presidential map because it has better contrast between the colors whereas it's hard to tell some of the senate map's colors apart. Reywas92 Talk 02:46, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
The other major problem here is the use of county-level choropleth maps, whose only advantage is that county data is very easy to come by. We are often stuck with it, but standardizing on any map of this type is extremely harmful because US county filled maps are very misleading. The visual weight is determined by the size of the county, which is meaningless. We want to know how many votes were cast for each candidate, and blowing that up in relation to how many square miles a given county happens to have is false and misleading. These are graphics we are talking about, and visual impact is everything. If you expect readers to mentally correct for the way county size misleads them, why not just use a crosstab? We should not standardize on a poor graphic out of mere convenience when it is so harmful. We have a good alternative: pie File:Minard-carte-viande-1858.png. It allows us to scale the visual impact to match the number of votes cast, and to give an accurate magnitude of a candidate's votes. These single color or color tone filled maps eliminate everything except the county's winning candidate, while pies show us two leading candidates, and easily accommodate three-way races, such as in File:Utah 2016 presidential results by county.png.
Any editor who wishes to make maps, be they in SVG format or any other, and in filled county or other types of graphic, is welcome to edit. But I strongly oppose standardization on such a sub-optimal type of map. I would encourage making maps for articles that have nothing at all, rather than replacing existing ones with the goal of standardization. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 04:45, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Just a heads up, I've seen a couple of IPs adding apparently made-up result figures to several articles on 19th and early-20th century election articles in the last couple of days. I think I have most national election articles on my watchlist (exceptions being the UK and US), but just something others should probably be aware of. The IPs I've seen so far are 83.6.73.87 ( talk · contribs) and 79.185.205.254 ( talk · contribs). Cheers, Number 5 7 20:06, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia has many thousands of wikilinks which point to disambiguation pages. It would be useful to readers if these links directed them to the specific pages of interest, rather than making them search through a list. Members of WikiProject Disambiguation have been working on this and the total number is now below 20,000 for the first time. Some of these links require specialist knowledge of the topics concerned and therefore it would be great if you could help in your area of expertise.
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Please take a few minutes to help make these more useful to our readers.— Rod talk 15:21, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Are elections described as decided before the result is certified? Should we say in Wikipedia's voice that an election outcome is decided, and say in infoboxes such as {{ Infobox election}}, {{ Infobox officeholder}} that a candidate is the winner, and is now an incoming officeholder (with a future start date), calling them <office> -elect, based on major media calling the race using projections from preliminary returns, before the final vote tally and certification of the result? Do we base this only on major media annoucing a winner, or is this article content influenced by whether the presumed losing candidate has conceded or not? And is this article content influenced by our own calculations such as the mathematical probability of overcoming a deficit in the uncounted ballots?
Alternatively, do we only say, in prose using in-text attribution, in the article body not in infoboxes: "CNN, the NYT, and WGBH have called the race for candidate X, and they predict that the uncounted ballots are insufficient to overcome their lead over candidate Y" and "Candidate Y has/has not conceded"?
Does this reasoning also apply to sports contests or other outcomes where it is widely agreed by reliable sources that it has been decided, but there is some time delay before an official result is verified and announced, or does this apply only to elections? -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 04:57, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Predictions based on likely vote outcomes are not facts, they are opinions. Articles should always clearly distinguish facts and opinions. I like having opinions in articles, but they must be framed honestly, as opinions. I am surprised this issue doesn't already have clear guidelines in WikiProject Elections, and I'm surprised that many editors think we should jump the gun this way. I have always favored a long timetable, and conservatively biding our time until the dust has settled before creating new articles or describing news events. We should treat sports events or anything the same way: it's not over until the officials have announced it, and we have all the time in the world.
It is the role of a newspaper to give the public up-to-the-minute advice and guidance, and give them hints about election outcomes rather than leave them guessing. It is not the role of an encyclopedia to be in a rush to declare contest decided as long as alternative outcomes are possible. The Wikipedia is not a crystal ball policy is explicit about this. NPOV policy says we do not state opinions as facts. WP:NOTNEWS says we take the long view, and feel no pressure to track the latest developments. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 05:28, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Referring to the current example, this article lead says plainly that the election was called. We aren't keeping that information from readers. This version adds that Moon has conceded, and then says, in Wikipedia's voice, "Durkan will take office on November 28, after the results are certified." That is not a fact. That is an opinion based on assumptions about the remaining votes. This kind of statement is what you'd see in a newspaper, intended to keep citizens abreast of developments and upcoming events. Saying "it's going to rain tomorrow" is useful newspaper-type information, even if it is unscientific and not precise. An encyclopedia exists to provide insight, to educate. So an encyclopedia article should be precise in explaining that the predicted outcome is an opinion based on reasonable assumptions. The reader might still end up confident that Durkan will be sworn in on November 28, but aware that is an educated guess. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 07:27, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Nobody has objected to the text in the lead here saying "Durkan had over 60% of the vote in the preliminary count on the last day of the election, and The Seattle Times called the race for Durkan, predicting that Moon was unlikely to overcome Durkan's lead when the uncounted ballots were added leading up to the final count on November 28, 2017." It is a verifiable fact that the Times called the election. The question here is whether we also want the infobox on the right to say "Taking office November 28, 2017 Succeeding Tim Burgess". Or to add a name to List of Mayors of Seattle after only half the ballots have been counted.
Your comments don't make it completely clear if you are talking about a result after all the ballots have been counted, or only a portion of them. The case here is one in which all the votes have not been counted. This isn't a matter of re-counting votes before certification. We're talking about a total of about 200,000 ballots cast, and only about 100,000 of them were counted on the first day. Because the result was about 60% to 40%, the news media declared a winner, even though the remaining ballots had not been seen by anyone. I am saying this is the same as declaring a winner before we know the final score. It's not a matter of overturning a result after a recount. The first count hasn't even been finished. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 17:52, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Durkan had over 60% of the vote in the preliminary count on the last day of the election, and The Seattle Times called the race for Durkanwould be sufficient. But I would change it to simply "won" as soon as the raw vote tally makes it clear that we know who won; I wouldn't wait weeks for the "certified" result which is a bureaucratic formality. Also, when the raw vote tally shows a winner I think mayor-elect or similar can be added to the person's infobox. I don't think they should be added to "list of mayors of Seattle" until they actually take office. -- MelanieN ( talk) 21:14, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
It turns out that in this case we have a copious amount of detail on how long a count takes -- Seattle mayoral election, 2017#Results has a graph that even shows the exact rate of counting. Possibly more detail than we need but at the time it seemed relevant. On the first day, about 90,000 out of 180,000 ballots was counted. It took 9 days, until 8/9, to finish counting them all. This matches the milestone we usually have about 24 hours after of a US Presidential polls close, when the first count is done and the result of a given state is rarely in doubt. Here it wasn't until 8/15 that the primary result was officially certified.
If you like the text of the lede, but not declaring a winner in the infobox, then we agree. I wouldn't really mind waiting until 100% of the vote has been counted, without waiting until it is "certified". What I definitely object to is the infobox treating the outcome as fact when only 50% or 60% of the votes have been counted. This is analogous to ten minutes after the polls have closed on election night in a US Presidential race and there's as many uncounted ballots as counted. Even if a candidate concedes, those boxes of uncounted ballots are still Schrodinger's Cat. A concession doesn't change what is in those boxes. To me that is declaring a winner in game at the end of the third quarter.
@ Reywas92: nobody suggested "ignoring" when the major media calls the race. It appears I'm having a difficult time avoiding being misinterpreted and dealing with straw man arguments. Yes, articles should say that the race has been called. Agreed! The question is, how and where do we present that? When you say that the ballots are evenly distributed and not especially skewed, you make a good argument, but it so happens that our sources don't state that argument. Many sources have the opinion that later-counted ballots skew left in Washington State. The Times didn't say it is mathematically impossible for the uncounted ballots to overcome the margin. The Seattle Times and KING5 called it without explaining why. When our sources don't show their work, should we treat it as fact? -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 23:16, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 |
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
For several years, the commonly-accepted but unofficial threshold for inclusion in the infobox of U.S. election articles has been receiving 5% of the vote. I am not aware of the exact discussion that established this policy (a link would be appreciated), but I will cite some similar past discussions: this one from 2010 regarding inclusion based on poll results, and two at Talk:United States Senate election in Illinois, 2010 relating to the same topic.
This issue was brought up by a recent RfC at the talk page of United States presidential election in the District of Columbia, 2016 regarding the inclusion of Donald Trump in the infobox. Trump received 4% of the vote in the District.
Here are the options:
Question 1
What should be the standard for inclusion in the infobox of U.S. election articles?
Question 2
If only one candidate meets the yet-to-be-defined-threshold, should the second-place contender be included?
pinging @ Dennis Bratland: as he provided the options for question 1.
MB298 ( talk) 01:46, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Place your opinions below. You may vote once for question 1 and once for question 2. For general discussion about this RfC, place your comments in the "Discussion" section below.
I was filling in some data on Virginia House of Delegates election, 2017 from the Virginia Department of Elections database. It seems to me, though, that rather than looking everything up by hand, wouldn't it be quicker (and improve accuracy) to put in a FOIA request and get the whole database, and import that data into Wikidata? There are 69 election years' worth of data just for the House of Delegates elections, so it seems like it would be worthwhile to automate the process, if possible. Is this in the cards? N I H I L I S T I C ( talk) 02:41, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
What naming convention do we want to use for Virginia Senate districts? Virginia Senate, District 40, or Virginia's 40th Senate district, or 40th Senate of Virginia district, or something else? — Preceding unsigned comment added by N I H I L I S T I C ( talk • contribs) 20:18, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
For a while I've been intending to update French legislative election results on Wikipedia by providing results tables for all elections dating back to 1958 on constituency articles. I'd also like to create results articles on a departmental basis for each legislative election as well, though, to essentially provide a "results breakdown" by constituency for every department. This is already standard practice on the French Wikipedia, e.g. fr:Élections législatives de 2012 dans le Nord. The alternative would be to create a "mega-article" for the results from all 577 constituencies – I've got a (rather incomplete) sandbox lying around which essentially acts as one for the 2012 legislative elections, but it alone is 1.5 MB, so I personally think it would be more permissible or ideal to provide such breakdowns on a departmental basis only. Any particularly strong feelings about this? Mélencron ( talk) 23:35, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
There is a discussion on whether plurality voting should be singled out for being an unfair voting system in a proposed new introduction of the electoral system article. As it's a bit of a stalemate between three editors at present, extra input would be welcome here. Cheers, Number 5 7 22:30, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
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Hi, I'm doing a bit of work on some local elections (in the United Kingdom), and have been pointed over here by the teahouse regarding this query, and was wondering what the best way to show rejected/spoilt ballots in the turnout figures was inside the election boxes - should I just add them to the total turnout figure and leave it at that or create and extra row for rejected ballots? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ballotboxworm ( talk • contribs) 12:39, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
I've started an RfC on Talk:voting method about the naming of that article. I apologize for reopening this issue, but I feel that the clarity of the evidence warrants it in this case. Homunq ( ࿓) 15:17, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm having problems with Template:Infobox Election at United Nations Security Council election, 2017. I can't get it to display the newly elected members of the council properly, and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Could someone here please have a look. Thanks. Sir Sputnik ( talk) 22:06, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
| ongoing = no
to show results.
PrimeHunter (
talk) 01:38, 3 June 2017 (UTC)It seems like in some cases, people want to remove almost all the prose from election articles and just have a bunch of data about endorsements, polling, fundraising, and results. Biographical information about the candidates, and information about the political controversies in the races, along with significant campaign events such as debates, gets eliminated.
Also, in articles about constituencies (e.g. districts), people sometimes want to eliminate almost all the prose and just have data about election results. Let's say there's a constituency that has had elections for the past 200 years. If you include information about the issues, controversies, and events of the most recent election, that gets removed as recentism. But of course, if people would keep adding this kind of information with each successive election, then 100 years from now, we would have 100 years worth of information about the constituency's political history. If that information gets removed every time, then 100 years from now, we still have nothing but results data. Compy book ( talk) 00:51, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I have been looking at Parliamentary election results in the UK, following the recent General Election (and occasionally filling in some details). There seems to be no consensus on how the '±' column should be completed if the relevant party (or individual independent) did not stand in the previous election. I would say, as a matter of common sense, that, if, say, Party A stood in 2017 and got 2.5% but did not stand in 2015, that marks a +2.5 on the previous figure, but many editors seem to put 'N/A' in the column instead. This seems less logical, but is there some general psephological convention being followed here? There really seems to be no consistency of approach. Ntmr ( talk) 15:41, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm beginning a project to clean up and correct old French election articles and have been having some trouble locating results of old elections. Right now I'm attempting to locate results of the 1973 legislative election; data.gouv.fr has 473 out of 490 constituencies, with the source being the CDSP. These numbers also correspond to the totals on the france-politique archive (hobbyists). The National Assembly also has published results for the 1973 legislatives which differ from the above, but I can't find the original source it cites. What is more, neither the French nor English articles on the topic seem to cite sources for the numbers they use (inserted into their articles in 2006) – which differ from both of the previous. Any help locating complete results (by nuance, with seat numbers, etc.) would be greatly appreciated. Mélen cron 15:39, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
I've been recently turning .png files into .svg ones for election box maps in Minnesota - gubernational, senate, presidential, etc. Have about 50 done so far. However, as I'm getting into very old results without exact county data, I have been using 2 colors to denote who won the country, instead of using different shades to denote the margin they won by. Here are 2 articles to explain what I mean.
When we have exact data - Minnesota gubernatorial election, 2002
Idea for no exact result maps - Minnesota gubernatorial election, 1990
The current maps for elections with no specific county data is Minnesota gubernatorial election, 1986, and I am trying to clean these maps up to our current standard. I bring this up because as I expand into other types of maps, I'd like to create a standard color scheme and format for all US maps without exact county data. What are your thoughts on this? I'd like to hear others opinions before I venture too far down this road. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PeterMGrund ( talk • contribs) 04:36, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
One of the prime arguments I've heard in favor of keeping these inadequate, misleading maps is that they are "standard". They're everywhere. But one has do ask, how did they become standard? It's because of decisions like this right here. I would strongly discourage putting time into making this type of map, and if another editor wants to put a better map on an article, it's harmful to tell them they can't because 100 other articles use these easily made but useless filled area maps.
I really like the features of SVG, but I've also noticed that the existence of an SVG graphic biases editors towards using that graphic over a raster graphic image, even if the jpg or png is more accurate or more relevant. Converting an inferior map into SVG has a indicate to set it in stone as the "standard" and makes it harder to improve. SVG, sadly and ironically, becomes a hindrance to making the encyclopedia incrementally better. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 20:28, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
Discussion of New Hampshire fraud allegations over at Talk:United States presidential election, 2016#More allegations of vote tampering. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 22:41, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
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The 1971 election for 212 parliamentary seats is missing 11 seats in the table: 7 from PSB(BRUX) and 4 from PVV/PLP.
/info/en/?search=Belgian_general_election,_1971
There's a discussion around the infobox for the recent New Zealand election and what parties to include here: Talk:New_Zealand_general_election,_2017#Sixth_Party. Input from more people would be valuable. Bondegezou ( talk) 14:21, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
I have spoken with others interested in promoting the visibility of local and state elections. Citizens would be well served by an easily linked and browsable project that provides information on elected offices along with their filing deadlines and requirements. Some current pages on these municipalities exist, but they are not entirely consistent, general election information is lacking, and specific information on how to run for an office is nowhere to be found (in my admittedly limited search thus far). I am currently researching formats and templates and would greatly appreciate feedback from this community on how to approach this.
My initial thought is to create an entirely new set of pages specifically dedicated to providing this sort of information, organized by state and then county, city, township, or other local government forms. After creating this content, relevant links and summaries can be added to existing pages on the municipalities. I'm looking at the U.S. Counties template as a place to start the organization of the project. Tgillet1 ( talk) 05:44, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
Is there a particular reason that for elections in some countries, the "general election" article lists both the presidential and legislative election results on the same article if they are held at the same time? I can understand the argument for it, but it would seem much more consistent – and clearer – with other presidential/legislative election articles if each had its own article, since each is its own unique topic, after all; e.g., this is the case in Turkey, Argentina, Ecuador, and quite a few other countries. Notably, when it comes to the U.S., the legislative (House of Representatives) and presidential election articles are separate, though they coincide on a 4-year beat. Mélencron ( talk) 19:01, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Why is it that pretty much every single polling table on elections articles on Wikipedia violates WP:SALORDER by being organized in reverse-chronological order?! As far as I can tell, there is no compelling, policy-based reason for this, and it seems to be a case "they've been done this way since the beginning, so why change them?..." kind of thing. Does anyone else see a problem with polling tables violating WP:SALORDER for no particularly good reason, esp. in articles for past elections where these polling lists are now stable? (I'm wondering if this might be a job for a bot, if consensus can be established that these lists should follow SALORDER like every other chronological list on the project...) -- IJBall ( contribs • talk) 22:23, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
As I've been slowly converting the thousands of United States electoral maps currently in .jpeg/.png format to .svg, I've been coming across many inconsistencies, even with maps made in 2016. For example, when comparing 2016 presidential election maps to 2016 senate election maps, an entirely different color scheme is being used, as well as a lack of color keys.
Should we streamline our electoral map making template for the United States to include all relevant elections (President, Senate, and any other state-wide election)? If a different map is better suited, then of course use that, this is just to streamline the process.
Peter M. Grund ( talk) 02:16, 6 November 2017 (UTC)PeterMGrund
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but I want to thank you for your efforts on this, and if you are continuing with the conversion project I'd want you to use whatever makes it easiest for you and results in the most consistency across articles. Of the two above I prefer the presidential map because it has better contrast between the colors whereas it's hard to tell some of the senate map's colors apart. Reywas92 Talk 02:46, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
The other major problem here is the use of county-level choropleth maps, whose only advantage is that county data is very easy to come by. We are often stuck with it, but standardizing on any map of this type is extremely harmful because US county filled maps are very misleading. The visual weight is determined by the size of the county, which is meaningless. We want to know how many votes were cast for each candidate, and blowing that up in relation to how many square miles a given county happens to have is false and misleading. These are graphics we are talking about, and visual impact is everything. If you expect readers to mentally correct for the way county size misleads them, why not just use a crosstab? We should not standardize on a poor graphic out of mere convenience when it is so harmful. We have a good alternative: pie File:Minard-carte-viande-1858.png. It allows us to scale the visual impact to match the number of votes cast, and to give an accurate magnitude of a candidate's votes. These single color or color tone filled maps eliminate everything except the county's winning candidate, while pies show us two leading candidates, and easily accommodate three-way races, such as in File:Utah 2016 presidential results by county.png.
Any editor who wishes to make maps, be they in SVG format or any other, and in filled county or other types of graphic, is welcome to edit. But I strongly oppose standardization on such a sub-optimal type of map. I would encourage making maps for articles that have nothing at all, rather than replacing existing ones with the goal of standardization. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 04:45, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Just a heads up, I've seen a couple of IPs adding apparently made-up result figures to several articles on 19th and early-20th century election articles in the last couple of days. I think I have most national election articles on my watchlist (exceptions being the UK and US), but just something others should probably be aware of. The IPs I've seen so far are 83.6.73.87 ( talk · contribs) and 79.185.205.254 ( talk · contribs). Cheers, Number 5 7 20:06, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia has many thousands of wikilinks which point to disambiguation pages. It would be useful to readers if these links directed them to the specific pages of interest, rather than making them search through a list. Members of WikiProject Disambiguation have been working on this and the total number is now below 20,000 for the first time. Some of these links require specialist knowledge of the topics concerned and therefore it would be great if you could help in your area of expertise.
A list of the relevant links on pages which fall within the remit of this wikiproject can be found at http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/cgi-bin/topic_points.py?banner=WikiProject_Elections_and_Referendums
Please take a few minutes to help make these more useful to our readers.— Rod talk 15:21, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Are elections described as decided before the result is certified? Should we say in Wikipedia's voice that an election outcome is decided, and say in infoboxes such as {{ Infobox election}}, {{ Infobox officeholder}} that a candidate is the winner, and is now an incoming officeholder (with a future start date), calling them <office> -elect, based on major media calling the race using projections from preliminary returns, before the final vote tally and certification of the result? Do we base this only on major media annoucing a winner, or is this article content influenced by whether the presumed losing candidate has conceded or not? And is this article content influenced by our own calculations such as the mathematical probability of overcoming a deficit in the uncounted ballots?
Alternatively, do we only say, in prose using in-text attribution, in the article body not in infoboxes: "CNN, the NYT, and WGBH have called the race for candidate X, and they predict that the uncounted ballots are insufficient to overcome their lead over candidate Y" and "Candidate Y has/has not conceded"?
Does this reasoning also apply to sports contests or other outcomes where it is widely agreed by reliable sources that it has been decided, but there is some time delay before an official result is verified and announced, or does this apply only to elections? -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 04:57, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Predictions based on likely vote outcomes are not facts, they are opinions. Articles should always clearly distinguish facts and opinions. I like having opinions in articles, but they must be framed honestly, as opinions. I am surprised this issue doesn't already have clear guidelines in WikiProject Elections, and I'm surprised that many editors think we should jump the gun this way. I have always favored a long timetable, and conservatively biding our time until the dust has settled before creating new articles or describing news events. We should treat sports events or anything the same way: it's not over until the officials have announced it, and we have all the time in the world.
It is the role of a newspaper to give the public up-to-the-minute advice and guidance, and give them hints about election outcomes rather than leave them guessing. It is not the role of an encyclopedia to be in a rush to declare contest decided as long as alternative outcomes are possible. The Wikipedia is not a crystal ball policy is explicit about this. NPOV policy says we do not state opinions as facts. WP:NOTNEWS says we take the long view, and feel no pressure to track the latest developments. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 05:28, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Referring to the current example, this article lead says plainly that the election was called. We aren't keeping that information from readers. This version adds that Moon has conceded, and then says, in Wikipedia's voice, "Durkan will take office on November 28, after the results are certified." That is not a fact. That is an opinion based on assumptions about the remaining votes. This kind of statement is what you'd see in a newspaper, intended to keep citizens abreast of developments and upcoming events. Saying "it's going to rain tomorrow" is useful newspaper-type information, even if it is unscientific and not precise. An encyclopedia exists to provide insight, to educate. So an encyclopedia article should be precise in explaining that the predicted outcome is an opinion based on reasonable assumptions. The reader might still end up confident that Durkan will be sworn in on November 28, but aware that is an educated guess. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 07:27, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Nobody has objected to the text in the lead here saying "Durkan had over 60% of the vote in the preliminary count on the last day of the election, and The Seattle Times called the race for Durkan, predicting that Moon was unlikely to overcome Durkan's lead when the uncounted ballots were added leading up to the final count on November 28, 2017." It is a verifiable fact that the Times called the election. The question here is whether we also want the infobox on the right to say "Taking office November 28, 2017 Succeeding Tim Burgess". Or to add a name to List of Mayors of Seattle after only half the ballots have been counted.
Your comments don't make it completely clear if you are talking about a result after all the ballots have been counted, or only a portion of them. The case here is one in which all the votes have not been counted. This isn't a matter of re-counting votes before certification. We're talking about a total of about 200,000 ballots cast, and only about 100,000 of them were counted on the first day. Because the result was about 60% to 40%, the news media declared a winner, even though the remaining ballots had not been seen by anyone. I am saying this is the same as declaring a winner before we know the final score. It's not a matter of overturning a result after a recount. The first count hasn't even been finished. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 17:52, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Durkan had over 60% of the vote in the preliminary count on the last day of the election, and The Seattle Times called the race for Durkanwould be sufficient. But I would change it to simply "won" as soon as the raw vote tally makes it clear that we know who won; I wouldn't wait weeks for the "certified" result which is a bureaucratic formality. Also, when the raw vote tally shows a winner I think mayor-elect or similar can be added to the person's infobox. I don't think they should be added to "list of mayors of Seattle" until they actually take office. -- MelanieN ( talk) 21:14, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
It turns out that in this case we have a copious amount of detail on how long a count takes -- Seattle mayoral election, 2017#Results has a graph that even shows the exact rate of counting. Possibly more detail than we need but at the time it seemed relevant. On the first day, about 90,000 out of 180,000 ballots was counted. It took 9 days, until 8/9, to finish counting them all. This matches the milestone we usually have about 24 hours after of a US Presidential polls close, when the first count is done and the result of a given state is rarely in doubt. Here it wasn't until 8/15 that the primary result was officially certified.
If you like the text of the lede, but not declaring a winner in the infobox, then we agree. I wouldn't really mind waiting until 100% of the vote has been counted, without waiting until it is "certified". What I definitely object to is the infobox treating the outcome as fact when only 50% or 60% of the votes have been counted. This is analogous to ten minutes after the polls have closed on election night in a US Presidential race and there's as many uncounted ballots as counted. Even if a candidate concedes, those boxes of uncounted ballots are still Schrodinger's Cat. A concession doesn't change what is in those boxes. To me that is declaring a winner in game at the end of the third quarter.
@ Reywas92: nobody suggested "ignoring" when the major media calls the race. It appears I'm having a difficult time avoiding being misinterpreted and dealing with straw man arguments. Yes, articles should say that the race has been called. Agreed! The question is, how and where do we present that? When you say that the ballots are evenly distributed and not especially skewed, you make a good argument, but it so happens that our sources don't state that argument. Many sources have the opinion that later-counted ballots skew left in Washington State. The Times didn't say it is mathematically impossible for the uncounted ballots to overcome the margin. The Seattle Times and KING5 called it without explaining why. When our sources don't show their work, should we treat it as fact? -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 23:16, 9 November 2017 (UTC)