New electoral vote calculator

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Can we add faithless electors in the maps

IIRC Virginia said she was working on it as part of the new update that will also include the pre-1836 maps.

[Virginiá]

Can we add faithless electors in the maps

IIRC Virginia said she was working on it as part of the new update that will also include the pre-1836 maps.

I didn't actually want to devote any more time to faithless electors because it was a huge design change, but when I started doing the Senate prediction maps, I realized the best way to do it was to do full support for proportional electoral vote allocation, which includes faithless elector support. The Senate maps would just treat each region's "electoral votes" as "seats" and would have 2 each. Governor maps would be the same, except 1. In addition to faithless/proportional allocation, it will also allow non-voting/unpledged electors, as occasionally happened in late/early 1700s/1800s.

To achieve this I created an entire "vote manager" control that can be expanded under each region on the list. I'll post screenshots tonight to get some feedback.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Maybe Canada can be added in at some point, at least in the way Puerto Rico is technically usable.

[Virginiá]

Is the current calculator layout (long list with radio buttons - Dave's original layout) preferred or would a more interactive map a la 270towin be nicer?

The current page design is awfully "busy" and you have to scroll down to even see the map. I kept it this way originally because I wanted to minimize disruption of people's nostalgic preferences, but I'm wondering if people actually care or not about that.

[bagelman]

270towin style is more convenient if you don't have to worry about percentile shading. If you do it's a pain.

[Chips]

Is the current calculator layout (long list with radio buttons - Dave's original layout) preferred or would a more interactive map a la 270towin be nicer?

The current page design is awfully "busy" and you have to scroll down to even see the map. I kept it this way originally because I wanted to minimize disruption of people's nostalgic preferences, but I'm wondering if people actually care or not about that.

Honestly I think a 270toWin style map would be great!

[Chips]

270towin style is more convenient if you don't have to worry about percentile shading. If you do it's a pain.

I propose having a 270 style map and a dropdown menu for shading.

[Chips]

Also, one thing that would be nice is if there was a YaPMS-like option to disable states at will to make it easier for senate maps.

[Virginiá]

Also, one thing that would be nice is if there was a YaPMS-like option to disable states at will to make it easier for senate maps.

I'm actually adding Senate/Gubernatorial maps as an option for the next update, so it'll handle all of that for you. Close to finishing that feature, as a matter of fact.

[Chips]

Also, one thing that would be nice is if there was a YaPMS-like option to disable states at will to make it easier for senate maps.

I'm actually adding Senate/Gubernatorial maps as an option for the next update, so it'll handle all of that for you. Close to finishing that feature, as a matter of fact.

Thank you so much! I love you and all the work you do for this project!

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

270towin style is more convenient if you don't have to worry about percentile shading. If you do it's a pain.

Agreed. The option to have percentile shadings are what currently make Atlas' map generator superior to other options on the market, so I hope the "radio buttons" stick around in some form. (270toWin's drop-down menu is actually more inconvenient IMO, but maybe I'm alone in that opinion —and ofc I don't know how the addition of new features complicates things.)

[Virginiá]

No plans to remove the current detailed region options, but I've been giving some thought to a much simpler version in case people don't need all those options for the map they are creating.

Here is the Senate map page. Pictured is the 2020 map with a previous hypothetical MS win by Democrats (to demonstrate various features). The "Seat manager" looks the same for presidential maps, except that it would have the candidate names instead:




In this case, it is implied that Democrats won a MS seat prior to 2020. To signify a 2020 win, you'd select the Democrats via the radio button as you would now with the presidential map.

[Virginiá]

This is the 1808 presidential map, with the vote manager showing.

Elector choices that differ from the state's "official" winner are displayed in bubbles. The map generator will try to color the bubble based on who won those extra votes, but there are more than two winners, or the other winner was not an official candidate in the candidate list (eg faithless elector choice like "Spotted Eagle" from 2016), it'll show up as a Teal-like blue.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

This looks great! Truly impressive work.

I noticed a couple very minor mistakes in the current version of the EVC recently. It's not a big deal if it would be too great an inconvenience to correct, since one can just correct them manually, but on the other hand if it is relatively easy to fix I thought I would bring it up:

(1) The Republican candidate in 1884 is given as Benjamin Harrison; it should be James G. Blaine.

(2) James G. Birney is listed as an Independent in 1840 and 44; the "Liberty Party" is correct for both years.

(3) Martin Van Buren should be listed as the incumbent in 1840, but currently isn't.

Again, very minor so don't inconvenience yourself, but thought this might be an opportune moment.


For states (like NC in 1804) where we are missing pv totals, will it be possible to change the % shading using the calculator? Though I guess one could easily just manually change the embed code if not.


Again, cannot stress enough how good this looks!

[Virginiá]

(1) The Republican candidate in 1884 is given as Benjamin Harrison; it should be James G. Blaine.

Not sure how I missed that lol. I inputted a lot of this data by hand (with help from Bacon King), so I guess it's not surprising although I thought I double-checked those elections.

Thanks!

For states (like NC in 1804) where we are missing pv totals, will it be possible to change the % shading using the calculator? Though I guess one could easily just manually change the embed code if not.

I'll have to look at what I did for that. I think I just had the pop vote% set to 0, can't remember if I disabled the select box or not.

I'll make sure to include all these changes/fixes in the next update.

[Virginiá]

For states (like NC in 1804) where we are missing pv totals, will it be possible to change the % shading using the calculator? Though I guess one could easily just manually change the embed code if not.

So once I got home and checked and I had it set as No Vote, so it wasn't toggeable. I really should let people fill that in as they wish, though.

I've struggled with how to show states where there is either (a) no popular vote data available or (b) no popular vote held, because showing a color lighter than 30% is just...too light and especially for older elections, makes the map look bad. I settled on rendering states with no popular vote using the 40% shade, which is fairly light but not too much. I feel like maybe there should be a distinction between no vote data available and simply no pop vote held. Thoughts?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

For states (like NC in 1804) where we are missing pv totals, will it be possible to change the % shading using the calculator? Though I guess one could easily just manually change the embed code if not.

So once I got home and checked and I had it set as No Vote, so it wasn't toggeable. I really should let people fill that in as they wish, though.

I've struggled with how to show states where there is either (a) no popular vote data available or (b) no popular vote held, because showing a color lighter than 30% is just...too light and especially for older elections, makes the map look bad. I settled on rendering states with no popular vote using the 40% shade, which is fairly light but not too much. I feel like maybe there should be a distinction between no vote data available and simply no pop vote held. Thoughts?

Using 40% for states with no popular vote works fine. (I always thought the 20% shade used by the old EVC looked bad and was also hard to distinguish from the 30% shade. This looks much better.) The pre-1824 elections were all two-horse races, so there should be no need to use the 40% shade otherwise.

For states with missing pv data, maybe the "flipped" hatching could be used? Not sure. I also wonder how often people making alternate history maps would elect to use a "missing data" option, but I agree they should probably be visually distinct from the "no vote" states. (I guess you could always just have those states set at 50% on the default map if you don't want to add a separate toggle option.)

[bagelman]

What I hope to see is the ability to give different candidates electoral votes from the same state. I could use such a map to create a simple map of house delegations where you could hover over a state to see their delegation. If a state as 3 districts and 1 is Democrat, it would be a Republican colored state but hovering over it would be 2-1 rather than 3-0.

The vote manager thing looks promising.

[Virginiá]

What I hope to see is the ability to give different candidates electoral votes from the same state. I could use such a map to create a simple map of house delegations where you could hover over a state to see their delegation. If a state as 3 districts and 1 is Democrat, it would be a Republican colored state but hovering over it would be 2-1 rather than 3-0.

The vote manager thing looks promising.

If I'm understanding correctly, that is exactly what you can do with it.

You can give electoral votes to anyone, even "unofficial" candidates not defined in the legend. You can just type in a name, like Spotted Eagle, and give them a vote from a state.

[Continential]

If it can be implemented/you aren't planning on doing it, a feature I'd want is to be able to change the hex code of the colors.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Wait for the 1872 one it lists Horace Greeley as a Democrat when he ran under the Liberal Republican banner.

[Virginiá]

Wait for the 1872 one it lists Horace Greeley as a Democrat when he ran under the Liberal Republican banner.

I followed Dave's calculator on that because the electoral vote allocation was a bit of a mess due to his death:

https://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/evcalc.php?year=1872

Reading on it a bit more, LR looks more accurate here.

What should be done about those EVs? The next version I'm preparing of this simulator allows for assigning the EVs to the people it actually went to. When this original version was released, that wasn't possible, so only the states he won (and didn't get EVs for) were considered. Should the actual recipients of the EVs be entered & used?

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Wait for the 1872 one it lists Horace Greeley as a Democrat when he ran under the Liberal Republican banner.

I followed Dave's calculator on that because the electoral vote allocation was a bit of a mess due to his death:

https://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/evcalc.php?year=1872

Reading on it a bit more, LR looks more accurate here.

What should be done about those EVs? The next version I'm preparing of this simulator allows for assigning the EVs to the people it actually went to. When this original version was released, that wasn't possible, so only the states he won (and didn't get EVs for) were considered. Should the actual recipients of the EVs be entered & used?

Maybe something like “various (party)? I think that’s what 270 does.

[Continential]

If it can be implemented/you aren't planning on doing it, a feature I'd want is to be able to change the hex code of the colors.

?

[Virginiá]

If it can be implemented/you aren't planning on doing it, a feature I'd want is to be able to change the hex code of the colors.

?

It is possible but requires a design change in the core code. I'm not against that but at the same time, I wonder if it would make some maps confusing and whether there should be restrictions on the colors.. like a user can select a "base" color, the map automatically fills in every shade based on that. Every color (red, blue, etc) needs 8 shades (30% - 100%, increments of 10) and so the user would have to come up with all those themselves, except that if they do a poor job the map becomes becomes a PITA to interpret.