Alternate Electoral Maps

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Steve Brinson

Steve Brinson

Due to circumstances, I can't make wikiboxes at the moment, so here's the 2016 Texas gubernatorial election in Divided Against Itself:
EDIT: I neglected to credit @Chicxulub for the basemap. Sorry!
txgovmap16.png
The initial results, certified by Texas Secretary of State Wayne Christian, stated that the results of the election were:

Ken Paxton (Lone Star) - 4,504,892 votes - 49.45%
Joaquin Castro (National Union-La Raza Unida-National Alternative-National Labor) - 4,503,159 votes - 49.43%

In and of itself, that result was not surprising. The last time a National Union candidate won the Governorship was the razor-thin re-election of Rick Perry in 2002. On the other hand, Ken Paxton, the successor to Governor Venkateswaran, was an Attorney General known for a number of sketchy missteps and staff shakeups, as well as several indictments for securities fraud, and Joaquin Castro was a charismatic and telegenic Representative skilled at navigating Texas's electoral pact laws and with a decent lead in the polls.
Also, 1,733 votes separated Paxton and Castro, and Greer County recorded 5,051 votes, all for Ken Paxton. Greer County, a county that by most people's standards is part of Oklahoma. Greer County, a county where just being a 21st-century rotten borough would be a step up - though it is that, too. Greer County, the county where Ferguson, Shivers, and Connally all found last-minute salvation. Greer County, which is basically a last-minute vote candy jar for the Lone Star Party, and whose participation in Texan elections has been challenged by the ACLU on no fewer than four separate occasions, not including this one.
Last week, the Texas Supreme Court - in an opinion written by Justice Don Willett, formerly a favorite to win re-election in a 2018 race which now seems very much in doubt - decided not to count the votes from Greer County in this or any future election. It appears that Castro will be our next Governor.
Don't get your hopes up too far, though - despite a spirited challenge by George P. Bush, son of John Bush (NU-CT) and, perhaps most importantly, nephew of Houston Skeeters manager George "Dubya" Bush, Lieutenant Governor Konni Burton was re-elected. In addition, both houses of the Lege remained in Lone Star hands. Still, Castro's victory is one bright spot for National Union in its otherwise massively dispiriting election night.

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Wallet

Wallet

Banned
Golfman76 said:
@Wallet

Taft+Roosevelt= (note that Roosevelt+Taft is just this map but green v blue)

genusmap.php

William H. Taft/Nicholas Butler (Republican), 379 Electoral votes, 50.6%
Woodrow Wilson/Thomas Marshall (Democratic), 152 Electoral votes, 41.8%
Eugene Debs/Emil Seidel (Socialist), 0 Electoral votes, 6.0%
Click to expand...
Thanks. Roosevelt really messed up by running 3rd party. What if you add Debs vote to the Republicans?
 
Prussian1871

Prussian1871

Now do one where one half of Debs supporters go to Taft, but the remaining half is put to the power of 2 over pi while Wilson 1916, Taft 1908, and Roosevelt 1904 run against themselves in 1912 as separate candidates.
 
KiwiEater

KiwiEater

Golfman76 said:
@Wallet

Taft+Roosevelt= (note that Roosevelt+Taft is just this map but green v blue)

genusmap.php

William H. Taft/Nicholas Butler (Republican), 379 Electoral votes, 50.6%
Woodrow Wilson/Thomas Marshall (Democratic), 152 Electoral votes, 41.8%
Eugene Debs/Emil Seidel (Socialist), 0 Electoral votes, 6.0%
Click to expand...
You should do Roosevelt + Taft(But still red) and Wilson + Debs together
 

CT23

Two basic questions:

1-What do you think the 2016 electoral map would have looked like had it been Rubio vs. Clinton? Some polls showed him beating her, but many polls also showed Trump losing convincingly in the Electoral College so who knows?

2-In general, what site/program do you all use to make these electoral maps?
 

Rhad

Banned
European General Election with an Electoral College.
I took the 2014 parliamentary election and lumped the liberal and conservative parties into two super parties. I then counted which party got more votes in a given nation (nations are colored according to margin, Red is liberals, Blue is conservatives.) The electoral college map is http://imgur.com/FAG6ctw. Conservatives got 201 electoral votes and 45.1% of the popular vote. Liberals got 290 and 47.9% of the popular vote.
 

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Gog-Clocthoth

CT23 said:
2-In general, what site/program do you all use to make these electoral maps?
Click to expand...

I can't be too sure about #1; but the site that is mainly used to make these alternate maps is:
http://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/evcalc.php

Note that it is set up with the Democrats as Red and the Republicans as Blue. Some people stick with the site's color codes, some reverse it. You'll find five colors in all that are available for states; Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Grey. The editable maps also only go back to 1840, though there should be maps going back to 1789 elsewhere on US Election Atlas. That doesn't mean you can't edit them a little in Paint or another program to suit your needs. I like to have a copy of the blank, basic map on hand so I can customize it. Here's an example from a Wikibox I made a while back:

zXVvJEY.png

Notice the electoral map has been modified to include territory borders and the modified state lines to reflect the 1789 election.

Here's the basic, blank map in case you need to do something more complex like the above map:

genusmap.php



Of course, the above isn't the only source for electoral maps, though it is by far the most popular in this thread. You'll also see it pop up in the Alternate Wikiboxes Thread for people who have difficulty modifying or choose not to use a Wikipedia-style .svg map. Below I'll talk about some others, including Wikipedia's .svg map.

This is the map you'll see on any IRL Presidential election infobox on Wikipedia. Here's an example from the 1984 Presidential election:
ElectoralCollege1984.svg


There are two ways to edit these that I know of: Inkscape and Notepad. Keep in mind I'm not a "tech" guy, I don't know the proper terms for things. I just know how to get the results I want and that's what I'll try to show you here.

Inkscape: This is an easy one to explain, as I've never used it. If you want to know more about Inkscape, I'd recommend the Alternate Wikiboxes thread I linked to above, since a lot of people use it to edit their maps.

Editing the .svg in Notepad: This is my preferred method of modifying Wikipedia electoral maps, though they aren't posted as often in this thread. I think it's because the effort that goes into making one usually results in people making a wikibox to house it. I'll give a quick tutorial on editing Wikipedia-style SVG maps now:

First, find the the map you want to modify on Wikipedia. For the purposes of this exercise, I'll be using the 2004 Presidential election:
e7JmXxg.png

Step 3: You'll be here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/ElectoralCollege2004.svg
Save this file using CTRL+S or right-clicking and selecting "Save As".

Step 4: Open the file using Notepad or Notepad++; I prefer the latter, since there is color-coding for the text and it is organized nicely. However, I'll be using plain old Notepad just to show it can be done.

dp9wW2I.png


Just look at that mess! In a way, it looks like a lot, but once you understand what things mean, you can mess around with it and do some cool things. If you look closely, every new line has a "path id" with two letters. These represent the two-letter abbreviations of states. Every Wikipedia election map I've seen has these, be it for President, Senate, or House elections. We're going to focus on Alaska, because what works for one, works for every state in this map.

nlr7JfH.png


That about covers it for making the Alternate Wikipedia-style Electoral maps. If you want to upload them to the forum, you can just insert the .svg as a picture, or upload it to the Wikimedia commons, the same place you got the original .svg from; then use the url to insert as a picture. I believe the latter is the preferred method, since uploading to the forum directly costs bandwidth which costs Ian money or something. Like I said, not a tech guy, but let's just take the extra time to host the image somewhere else and not bankrupt the man over 10,000 Trump v. Hillary maps.

http://www.270towin.com/historical-presidential-elections/
Similar to the USElectionAtlas map editor, though the colors aren't reversed, and every election back to 1789 is available to be modified.

http://kevinhayeswilson.com/redraw/
This one was popular for a while. It let's you redraw state boundaries county-by-county, though it is limited to the 2016 and 2012 Presidential election results.

http://fakeisthenewreal.org/random-states-of-america/
This is similar to the above, though the states are randomly drawn and the user cannot modify borders once they are set. There is a county view, though the counties never change color to reflect their new state like the ones in "Redraw" do. I suppose the two could be used together to create something more comprehensive.
 

CT23

genusmap.php


Rubio/Kasich-275
Clinton/Kaine-263

Per US Election Atlas standards, blue is GOP and red Democrat.



Here's what a Rubio win might have looked like. Is this ASB? I thought Rubio would get a much closer Electoral College win, but the popular vote gap would have been much closer.
 

BigVic

Red for Democrats and Blue for Republicans is used in the US Election Atlas
2016: Walker wins big as Bernie announces retirement from Politics, Republicans make big gains in congress
genusmap.php


Gov. Scott K. Walker (R-WI)/Sen. Robert J. "Rob" Portman (R-OH) 337 51.8%
Sen. Bernard "Bernie" Sanders (D-VT)/Sen. Cory A. Booker (D-NJ) 201 47.1%

2020: Madame President. Closest election in 2 decades see Gillibrand win the Presidency after winning recounts in Colorado and Florida.
genusmap.php


Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand (D-NY)/Rep. Joaquín Castro (D-TX) 272 49.8%
Pres. Scott K. Walker (R-WI)/VP Robert J. "Rob" Portman (R-OH) 266 49.5%
 
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shiftygiant

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Rhad said:
European General Election with an Electoral College.
I took the 2014 parliamentary election and lumped the liberal and conservative parties into two super parties. I then counted which party got more votes in a given nation (nations are colored according to margin, Red is liberals, Blue is conservatives.) The electoral college map is http://imgur.com/FAG6ctw. Conservatives got 201 electoral votes and 45.1% of the popular vote. Liberals got 290 and 47.9% of the popular vote.
Click to expand...
I have questions, but they all pertain to asking if you put the Social Democratic and Democratic Socialist parties in with the Liberals.

EDIT: Also if you included Regionalist Parties into that sum.
 
Prussian1871

Prussian1871

shiftygiant said:
I have questions, but they all pertain to asking if you put the Social Democratic and Democratic Socialist parties in with the Liberals.

EDIT: Also if you included Regionalist Parties into that sum.
Click to expand...

I was wondering this to.

It might be worth doing one where you separate it into:

Conservative
Liberal
Socialist/Social Democrat
Right-wing populist
 
shiftygiant

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Prussian1871 said:
I was wondering this to.

It might be worth doing one where you separate it into:

Conservative
Liberal
Socialist/Social Democrat
Right-wing populist
Click to expand...
That would certainly be better (though RWP breaks down when you get groups like Five-Star, though a Populist category would be a good route to distinguish).

If there is a need to do the binary, then Conservative-Liberal would make more sense than Liberal-Socialist-Social Democrats-Regionalist(?), if only because lumping everything Left of Graham Watson into the broad 'Liberal' category breaks down when you have to consider what the means.
 

Rhad

Banned
I did left-wing and right wing (EPP, ECR, EFDD, and any other party described as right wing) vs (S&D, ALDE, EUL-NGL, Greens-NFA, and any other left wingers.
 
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