Talk:U.S. presidential election
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Some of these standards are useful for other Wikipedia:election types. France has a president, so does Russia, and some Latin American and many developing countries. Most examples of elections are for parliamentary styles, but not all. So the table styles, means of tallying up to the final winner, etc., would all be useful to document for other presidential systems (though hopefully no other country will ever have an Electoral College!).
Also mayoralty elections and governor elections also have a single winner who takes all.
Someone might want to add the presidential election maps from,
http://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/_browse2000.htm
--Imran
Hm, I really dislike the table listing "President" and "Opponent", as if there always has been and can only be one of the later. This is a major distortion of elections like 1860 and 1912, and in many other elections additional candidates may have swung the ballance of power, and in any case are usefull to know as far as understanding the electorate at the time. --Infrogmation
- This is an artifact of the source for the data (National Archives (http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/scores.html)), and the format of the table. I agree that this could be done better. I've got an idea that I'm going to give a shot (listing all major opponents, where "major" is explicitly defined as greater than 1% of the total popular vote -- RobLa
- Excellent! -- Infrogmation
I'm mulling over a new format for the box scores at the top of every article. Thoughts on this?
Old format
| President: | Bill Clinton (Democrat) | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Main Opponent: | Bob Dole (Republican) | ||
| Electoral Vote: | Winner: 379 | Main Opponent: 159 | Total/Majority: 538/270 |
| Popular Vote: | Winner: 45,590,703 | Main Opponent: 37,816,307 | |
| Vice President: | Albert Gore, Jr. (379) | ||
| V.P. Opponent: | Jack Kemp (159) | ||
| Other elections | 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 | ||
| Source: U.S. Office of the Federal Register (http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/ec-boxsc.html) | |||
New format (New #1)
| Winner/Main Opponent | Bill Clinton | Bob Dole | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Democrat | Republican | |
| Electoral Votes (total: 538, majority: 270): |
379 | 159 | |
| Popular Votes: | 45,590,703 | 37,816,307 | |
| Vice President (electoral votes): | Albert Gore, Jr. (379) | Jack Kemp (159) | |
| Other elections | 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 | ||
| Source: U.S. Office of the Federal Register (http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/ec-boxsc.html) | |||
This moves all of the explanatory clutter off to the left, making it easier to see what happened at a glance.
Lemme know what you think. I probably won't have time to act on this for a while (if ever...that's a lot of work switching them all over, even with a script). -- RobLa 04:07 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)
I like this, Rob. It seems easier to follow. -- Zoe
I also like this. I made one tiny change to help IE6: Instead of colspan='2', I changed it to colspan="2". For whatever reason, IE doesn't like the former. --Mrwojo
I also prefer the new proposed format. -- M Carling
Thanks for the feedback; glad you like it. Now that I've gotten everyone to agree, I've got a tweak to make. ;-) How about adding a column header, as below? It's less compact, but a lot clearer, IMHO. -- RobLa 06:59 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)
Even newer format (New #2)
| Winner | Main Opponent | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Bill Clinton | Bob Dole | |
| Party | Democrat | Republican | |
| Electoral Votes (total: 538, majority: 270): |
379 | 159 | |
| Popular Votes: | 45,590,703 | 37,816,307 | |
| Vice President (electoral votes): | Albert Gore, Jr. (379) | Jack Kemp (159) | |
| Other elections | 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 | ||
| Source: U.S. Office of the Federal Register (http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/ec-boxsc.html) | |||
I liked your idea above of listing all oponents with 1% or more of the popular vote. Why is Ross Perot not in the table? I believe he got 9% or so in 1996. -- M Carling 13:55 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)
The table looks good as long as it can be used with more than 2 candidates. Again while 2 candidates may be an acceptable oversimplification for most years, it becomes a major distortion of fact when talking about elections such as 1860 and 1912. Could you post an example of the table with more candidates? -- Infrogmation 17:00 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)
- One concern I have is, in the case of the 1860 election, there is no way to in which you can really identify who the "main opponent" was. There was no single, "main" opponent to Lincoln; Douglas got the most votes among those opponents, but several of them got a lot of votes that weren't much different from Douglas's total, and three of the opponents got electoral votes. It really isn't an accurate characterization of that election to describe any of Lincoln's opponents as the "main" one. soulpatch
- As a followup, I would prefer that the table got turned on its side, so that the candidates were lined up vertically. Here is a very rough draft of what I think would be a preferable organization for the table (it is not polished, it is just meant to give a flavor of what I propose) soulpatch:
New #3
| Candidate | Electoral Vote | Party | Popular Vote | Pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bill Clinton (Winner) | 379 | Democratic | 45,590,703 | 49% |
| Bob Dole | 159 | Republican | 37,816,307 | 41% | Ross Perot | 0 | Reform Party | 8,085,402 | 8% |
- Looks good to me. -- Infrogmation
- I would also suggest that we add a column for the Vice Presidential candidate (there is plenty room for it, I just left it out). We could also probably squeeze in a column for the VP's electoral vote count, if anyone really cares about that. And of course the "other elections" and Federal Register references can be added to the bottom as additional rows to the table. soulpatch
Here's another draft of my proposal soulpatch:
New #4
| President | Electoral Vote | Party | Vice President | Popular Vote | Pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bill Clinton (W) | 379 | Democratic | Albert Gore, Jr. | 45,590,703 | 49% |
| Bob Dole | 159 | Republican | Jack Kemp | 37,816,307 | 41% | Ross Perot | 0 | Reform | Pat Choate | 8,085,402 | 8% |
| Other elections | 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 | ||||
| Source: U.S. Office of the Federal Register (http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/ec-boxsc.html) | |||||
Other suggestions: The electoral vote, popular vote, and percentage columns should be right-justified so that they line up more nicely. soulpatch
I like soulpatch's table. -- M Carling 5 Feb 2003 18:20 (UTC)
I'm torn...I agree that significant third/fourth/fifth place finishers should be listed. I'm not sure I like the idea of switching the X and Y axis to accommodate that, though. I find it's easier to read with the candidates in a column.
New #5
| Winner | Runner Up | Other Opponent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Bill Clinton | Bob Dole | Ross Perot |
| Party | Democrat | Republican | Reform |
| Electoral Votes (total: 538, majority: 270): |
379 | 159 | 0 |
| Popular Votes: | 45,590,703 | 37,816,307 | 8,085,402 |
| Running Mate (electoral votes): | Albert Gore, Jr. (379) | Jack Kemp (159) | Pat Choate |
| Other elections | 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 | ||
| Source: U.S. Office of the Federal Register (http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/ec-boxsc.html) | |||
There are problems once you get up to five candidates, but that is rare enough that the table could be split into two "macro rows". The column headers are also admittedly awkward.
If people really prefer New #4 above, I'd at least like to reorder and relabel the columns as below, making it easier to associated the popular vote with the candidate (running mate is more obvious, and can go far right):
New #6
| Presidential Candidate | Electoral Vote | Popular Vote | Pct | Party | Running Mate (Electoral Votes) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bill Clinton (W) | 379 | 45,590,703 | 49% | Democratic | Albert Gore, Jr. (379) |
| Bob Dole | 159 | 37,816,307 | 41% | Republican | Jack Kemp (159) | Ross Perot | 0 | 8,085,402 | 8% | Reform | Pat Choate (0) |
| Other elections: 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 | |||||
| Source: U.S. Office of the Federal Register (http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/ec-boxsc.html) | |||||
More thoughts? -- RobLa 06:54 Feb 6, 2003 (UTC)
- Using the term "Running mate" could be problematic, since for the first dozen or so elections, the Vice President was whoever finished second in the Electoral College standings. That's why many of the first President/Vice President combinations featured politicians from different political parties. Also, is there some way to work in the total/majority electoral college numbers? Minesweeper
- I like #6. It's true that the first three elections handled vice presidential elections differently (it was changed by the 12th amendment in 1804 after the 1800 election resulted in a tie; the framers of the Constitution didn't anticipate the rise of partisan politics where parties would submit two candidates for office in the hopes of capturing both president and vice-president). I think that the 1792, 1796, and 1800 elections probably need to have a different table format than the others, just because the elections were conducted according to different constitutionally defined rules. Another issue is the question of the occasional cases where people who didn't even run got an electoral vote because of some renegade elector, like Ronald Reagan in 1976 or John Qunicy Adams who got 1 electoral vote in 1820 which prevented James Monroe from winning the election unanimously. It seems like, for completeness, we should include lines in the table for these people, with the popular vote totals being blank, maybe with a footnote. But maybe there's a better way to handle those cases. soulpatch
1824 is also a rather messy election. Not only were four presidential candidates, but the ultimate winner (John Quincy Adams) was not the one who got the plurality of electoral votes (that was Andrew Jackson), because no one carried a majority and it got thrown to the House. And on top of that, the vice presidential race DID have a winner with a majority. Part of what made that one messy was the fact that there was only one major party at that time, the Democratic-Republicans. soulpatch
I like table #6 for all but the first three elections. Renegade electors are not a problem -- just list in the table the recipient with their electoral vote and however many, if any, popular votes, with an explanation in the body below. M Carling
In response to my moving Zoe's maps over to the right (compare U.S. presidential election, 1860 with an older version (http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=U.S._presidential_election%2C_1860&oldid=887745)), I received the following remark on my talk page:
- I think the election maps look better centered. Kingturtle 05:15 May 4, 2003 (UTC)
I think it wastes a lot of space to center the map. I'm not sure exactly how it looks on your machine, but on mine, this means that any explanatory text gets shoved "below the fold", which is pretty awful. However, I'll hold off on 1808-1848 to let others weigh in. -- RobLa 05:50 May 4, 2003 (UTC)
Instructions for converting Electoral College maps
Here's how I converted the maps you see on U.S. presidential election, 2000 from the source material provided by NationalAtlas.gov. Clearly, there are many ways of doing this. This method relies only on free software:
- Visit http://nationalatlas.gov/electionsprint.html
- Download the "EPS download"
- Open in GIMP
- In the "Load Postscript" dialog, choose "Graphic Antialiasing: Strong", and "Text Antialiasing: Strong", and a resolution of 90
- In the full image, use selection tool to select map for given year
- Copy the region (Ctrl+C)
- Right click, select "Edit", "Paste as new"
- Save as ElectoralCollegeXXXX.jpg
- Close the EPS
- Reopen the EPS file, this time choosing "Graphic Antialiasing: Strong", and "Text Antialiasing: Strong", and a resolution of 264
- Repeat process, saving as ElectoralCollegeXXXX-Large.jpg
I just changed the description of when elections take place from "the first Tuesday in November" to "the Tuesday after the first Monday in November". For example, see Federal Election Commission (http://www.fec.gov/pages/Statuteprov.htm#The%20Time%20of%20Conducting%20Federal%20Elections). It is possible that I am misinterpreting something, as I am not an American. - Molinari 01:01 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- Good catch. You're correct...the old wording was in error. - RobLa 07:51 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)
There's a change I would like to make to all of the electoral articles. It involves adding this table to the bottom of all of them: Template:Uspresidentialelections
...and removing the seven election window that's included in the table near the top. I've done it on U.S. presidential election, 2000 already, but the question is whether that should be propogated to all of them. Thoughts? -- RobLa 06:03, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Results format (again)
It appears as though we have three competing formats for the election result tables. They are (currently) reflected in these articles:
1. Current standard (discussed and agreed to above): 1996 2. Enhanced standard: 2000 3. Pres/VP split: a. old - 1916 b. new - 1920
Discussion'
I don't have a strong opinion one way or another as to which one it should be, but I do strongly feel that changes made to this many articles should be vetted before being made, as it's very time consuming to change them after the fact.
There are elements of the enhanced standard that I like. The consolidation of the "popular vote" header is a nice touch, as well as the more rows for voter turnout. The problem that I have with it is that it assumes that the VP always gets the same electoral votes as the pres (not true).
There are elements of the Pres/VP split I like. It's a simpler format, and works well even for the earliest elections. The problem that I have with it is that it doesn't make room for percentage breakdowns or totals. The center justification for numeric values doesn't look right, and will look worse once totals are added.
So, can we have some discussion about the various formats before an edit war breaks out? -- RobLa 19:34, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I think I prefer the Pres/VP split format. I think it's clearest and easiest to understand. Furthermore, for elections like 1824, 1836, 1840, 1872, and so forth, it makes a lot more sense, since Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates in those years (at least the ones who won electoral votes) weren't tied together in any predictable way. I think the Pres/VP split can be tinkered with to take care of your objections, as well. We could add a column for percentages, and (obviously) change the alignment of the numbers columns - I'd prefer a right justification, actually, I was just following the alignment already set. Another irritating thing about it would be harder to deal with - that it's in html code. But I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Certainly there are tremendous disadvantages to moving several of the articles currently in the Pres/VP split format over to the standard/enhanced format. I'd also note that I don't particularly like the turn out figures - I think this would be better placed in the text than in an election results table. john k 19:50, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I've updated the 1920 election with a split table I can live with. If we can agree on that or something closer to that, then I think the next step is to convert a highly visible article (e.g. 2000), so that more people see the new format and have a chance to throw rocks, make changes, etc. Once the dust settles, only then do I think a resumption of conversion would be in order. -- RobLa 04:08, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Sounds fine to me. john k 22:49, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
No objection yet in 2000...one thing that I do find irritating about the table is that the two popular vote/popular vote percentage columns in the President table are slightly wider than the Popular vote column in the VP table. I'm not comfortable with the html, so I don't really want to jigger with it, but I think that once that's settled, we should start converting the rest of them. john k 16:38, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
If you wish to attract even more attention, then you might wait until the second and use your proposed format for the 2004 results page. (Then again, one might have to wait even longer to find out results in some states.) -- Emsworth 20:08, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I agree. John K, this change is your baby, so I'll let you do the honors. -- RobLa 06:11, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to argue that all candidates be listed in the table. Not just those with > 1% of the poll. In 2004, that decision would mean that only the two main candidates are listed. I believe that all presidential candidates should be listed even if they only ran in part of the country. After all this is an encyclopedia, and should be complete. What do others think? -- Bernfarr 18:18, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Project page and results format
Hi there:
John K just made me aware of the discussions happening on this page. As it happens, I have been working to make the presidential election pages consistent, and I have created a project page for the "U.S. presidential election, yyyy" pages. Please take a look; I'd like to know if my proposals are good ones or if I've totally screwed the pooch.
One thing I should mention is that, since I wasn't aware of this discussion page (or, more precisely, that discussions about the set of U.S. presidential election pages was occurring here), I have been making changes to the "Electoral results" sections of the various presidential election pages. I started at 1789 and am up to 1904. I have been employing templates, using the same techniques as were used for the succession tables, to generate the results tables. For example, here is the election results table for the election of 1828:
Template:Start U.S. presidential ticket box
Template:U.S. presidential ticket box rowspan
Template:U.S. presidential ticket box vp subrow
Template:U.S. presidential ticket box row
Template:End U.S. presidential ticket box
(a) The popular vote figures exclude Delaware and South Carolina. In both of these states, the Electors were chosen by the state legislatures rather than by popular vote.
(b) Template:U.S. popular vote total disclaimer
and here is the code I used to generate it:
{{start U.S. presidential ticket box|pv_footnote=<sup>(a), (b)</sup>|ev_footnote=}}
{{U.S. presidential ticket box rowspan| name=[[Andrew Jackson]]| party=[[United States Democratic Party|Democratic]]| state=[[Tennessee]]| pv=647,286| pv_pct=56.0%| ev=178| vp_count=2| vp_name=[[John Caldwell Calhoun]]| vp_state=[[South Carolina]]| vp_ev=171}}
{{U.S. presidential ticket box vp subrow| vp_name=[[William Smith (1762-1840)|William Smith]]| vp_state=[[South Carolina]]| vp_ev=7}}
{{U.S. presidential ticket box row| name=[[John Quincy Adams]]| party=[[United States National Republican Party|National Republican]]| state=[[Massachusetts]]| pv=508,064| pv_pct=44.0%| ev=83| vp_name=[[Richard Rush]]| vp_state=[[Pennsylvania]]}}
{{end U.S. presidential ticket box| pv=1,155,350| ev=261| to_win=131}}
<sup>(a)</sup> ''The popular vote figures exclude [[Delaware]] and [[South Carolina]]. In both of these states, the Electors were chosen by the state legislatures rather than by popular vote.'' <br>
<sup>(b)</sup> ''{{U.S. popular vote total disclaimer}}''
The advantage to using templates is that style tweaks that don't change the underlying information can be made instantaneously across all the presidential election pages.
Now, this election results table doesn't work for a Presidential election in which a presidential ticket has a presidential candidate who is paired with at least two veeps, and a veep candidate who is paired with at least two presidential candidates. It also doesn't work for pre-Amendment XII elections. For these elections (unless any happened in the 20th century, the elections for which this applies are: 1789, 1792, 1796, 1800, 1812, 1824, 1836, and 1872), I generate three tables: one for the presidential election, one for the vice presidential election, and one to show how the candidates are paired up. All of these tables also make use of templates.
Let me know what you think. — DLJessup 04:07, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- I generally like the new table format, and I definitely like leveraging templates. I think the best way to get everyone's attention is to edit the 2004 election results, and see if that sticks. If it does, then finish off the rest of the results for 1908-2000 -- RobLa 20:14, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
- Well, the 2004 election does have one twist: it has the only elections results box that contains a "Ballot Access" column. What I think I'll do is break out that column into a separate table for now, and then put that column into a revised template format if further discussion indicates that I should do so. I am currently hesitant to add the "Ballot Access" column to the templates for a couple of reasons:
- On low resolution monitors, the elections results table is already plenty wide without adding in new columns.
- Currently, the only election for which we have this data is 2004. Unless we can get the data for other elections, it really doesn't make sense to have a separate set of templates for the 2004 election alone or to have a dummy column for all elections except 2004.
- I will proceed to split off the "Ballot Access" column and edit the 2004 election results momentarily. — DLJessup 05:20, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- Well, the 2004 election does have one twist: it has the only elections results box that contains a "Ballot Access" column. What I think I'll do is break out that column into a separate table for now, and then put that column into a revised template format if further discussion indicates that I should do so. I am currently hesitant to add the "Ballot Access" column to the templates for a couple of reasons:
Maps
On some of the maps on the pages for specific elections, blue is Republican, and red is Democrat. However, it is the other way around on the U.S. presidential election, 2004 page. Does anyone think this is potentially confusing? And isn't it blue for Democrat and red for Republican anyway, i.e isn't the 2004 version correct and the others wrong?
- I was sort of thinking the same thing. I mean, I don't think either party has an official color (actually I'm sure the official colors for both parties are red, white, and blue) but certainly today with the whole red state/blue state terminology it's basically essential that the coloring should remain as it is for the 2004 map. Unfortunately, if we want consistency, that means changing all the other maps. I'd be for this, as I don't think there was any particular reason why it was done the other way for the earlier maps. However, I don't know how to do this, and I sort of doubt it can be done without redoing all the maps from scratch. Can anyone help out here? -R. fiend 07:30, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)