How to (not) build an election map

Jason Norwood-YoungCode4SA

jason@code4sa.org

Code4SA“Everyone has the right of access to any information held by the state; and any

information that is held by another person and that is required for the exercise or

protection of any rights.”

South African Constitution (Section 32)

http://code4sa.org

Elections 2009

Then, in 2012…

2014HTML Data Mobile

2009Flash Multimedia Web

News24• 1.7 Million Unique Users• 22 Million Page Views• 30,000 app downloads• 102,000 concurrent users• … just on the day after the elections

source: http://www.bandwidthblog.com/

Mail & Guardian• Map accounted for 10% of traffic • 5,000 concurrent users on the map• 22,674 unique users• 54,475 sessions• 85,668 pageviews• Avg session duration: 9m29s

source: Google Analytics, TechCentral

That’s nice, but I thought this was about maps, not statistics

Data Information

Presentation Knowledge

First, the APIs

Mix in a bit of inspiration

http://afrith.github.io/election-web

Start visualising

Our first look - all the provinces, municipalities, wards

Adding some color

Pulling back a bit

Mario Maps!

Fighting with the maps

Large parts of the country don’t have wards (2009)

EC Ward in KZN? WTF

That’s okay EC, have some KZN islands

Fighting with the IEC

Contacting the IEC

(This isn’t a link - it’s an IMAGE)

At least we had plenty of time for testing…

Well, at least we got the API documentation in good time

Election day: Wednesday 7 May 2014

If only we had known about the FRICKING MYSQL REPLICATION OPTION!

Voting Day

May 7, 10:16am

• 7am - 2pm• Throw out 2009 Wards maps• Throw out seat allocation graphic• Add names to map• Add party flags

• 2pm - 3pm• Vote

• 3pm - 6pm• Final fixes to map

• 6pm - 7pm• Rest, dinner

• 7pm - 9pm• Integrate with IEC API

• 9pm - 5:54am• PANIC!!!!

• 5:54am - 10am• Sleep

• 10am onwards• PANIC some more

Fun on the day• IEC API reports that a Voting District has

changed (pull, not push)• We fetch the changed VD• We fetch the changed Munic (No ward data

available)• We fetch the changed Province• Have to do this for Provincial and National• Takes approximately 4 seconds for one result

4 (seconds) * 22,000 (voting districts) * 2 (provincial, national) =176,000 seconds

or2,933 minutes

or49 hours

Meanwhile, IEC is giving us bullshit data

which means we’re giving bullshit data

At 12pm on 8 MayI decided to turn off ward reporting

But a few days later(Thanks to Adrian Frith who quickly scraped the data)

Wards are back, baby!

And now we have Voting Districts!

So who did the best maps?

• Media24 had the most up-to-date, accurate data

• We had the coolest• Adrian Frith had the awesomest (and

continues to do the most with the maps)• Everyone else kinda sucked

http://adrianfrith.com/

Lessons• Data accuracy should come first, second

and third• Don’t trust the data• Check, double-check, triple-check, and then

get someone else to check• I’m too old for all-nighters

What’re the 2016 Elections going to look

like?• Mobile• Waaay more data• A more sophisticated, data-literate reader• They’re maps, Jim, but not as we know it…

Tech Stack• Code4SA Elections API

• Python (Flask)• http://election-api.code4sa.org/

• Interface to IEC API• Node.js

• Middleware btw Code4SA API and IEC API interface• Python (Flask)

• Maps API• Node.js, Topojson, Restify

• Front end• D3.js• Bootstrap 3• CodeKit

Embed your own

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://election-map.code4sa.org/resources/css/style.css"><div id="Code4SA" style="height: 100px"></div><script src="http://election-map.code4sa.org/code4sa-ck.js" type="text/javascript"></script><script>Code4SA.Map.deploy();</script>

But was it worth it?

Yes, but only because of the APIs

http://maps.code4sa.org/

http://election-api.code4sa.org/

– Emma Goldman

“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”