Louisiana 2008 - 2012 Swing by Precinct

[Miles]

I've been sitting on this for a while and finally wanted to get it posted!

Louisiana was one of just six states that swung to Obama in 2012:



^ It only parish I had problems with was Avoyelles - a number of precincts were markedly changed between the elections, so its parishwide.

New Orleans:


Baton Rouge:


Acadiana:


The north:


As a bonus map, here's the turnout change. Gold precincts cast more votes, purples votes fewer. Statewide turnout was up by about 33K votes:

[cinyc]

Thanks! 

How difficult was it to reconcile precincts from 2008 to 2012?  Outside of Avoyelles Parish, were many precincts changed to reflect the new district boundaries after redistricting?  I suspect there were at least some changes.

[Miles]

^ It wasn't bad - most had minor changes that were pretty easy to figure out.

While I was working on it, I had the older shapefile (the one DRA uses) and the 2012 shapefile, so that helped in visually trying to figure the differences out.

Lincoln Parish was pretty annoying in that it split 42 precincts into 102 (!). It took some time to figure things out, but the newer smaller precincts fit together to make the older larger ones. It was helpful to visually compare precinct lines between the two shapefiles.