New electoral vote calculator

[Virginiá]

re: NE/ME electoral votes - I'll fix later tonight or tomorrow morning.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

I really don't like this updated design at all. It just doesn't work with the Atlas colors. I feel like the modteam or whomever is making these changes should poll the userbase before making "improvements." The same thing happened when the name and board icons of the site were changed, and when the recommend button was added.

I agree. It seems odd that such major changes are suddenly made permanent without any prior consultation.

I did poll the community on recommendations before. It was split. So I eventually went with it. It's a very common forum feature these days, so I don't really get the big deal.

Dave also just released features and took some minor feedback afterwards. I'm unsure why the expectation is changing for things I'm doing. I've also polled the community on other minor changes before, and what I learned was that the vast majority of people here didn't give a crap, so I stopped doing it.

I didn't change the base color designations for the parties, I simply allowed people to fully customize the candidates/parties/colors. As you can see, the colors start the same as Dave's - red for Democrats, blue for Republicans.

If you don't like the shades, you can use the old calculator.

I know some people think it’s an overdue change, but I think it’s a shame that this new EVC seems to be causing the increasing abandonment of the distinctive Atlas colours for the mainstream media ones.

If people don't want to do the old colors, then they aren't going to do it. One reason I started working on this in the first place was that I was noticing more and more people using other map generators and just posting images of their maps. This isn't like the 2000s or early 2010s. There are many options available for this now. I'm not going to purposefully hold things back just to enforce an alternate color scheme. I don't blame people, either. The previous map calculator produces maps that just look very 1990s. I mean, this entire forum is literally using code and a theme designed in the early 2000s. Like it or not, things have to change eventually. At a certain point, it requires more work to keep them the same than it does to evolve and adapt.

At any rate, if people don't like this, I expect them to not use it. I never expected everyone to like it. I know better than that. This forum and the world in general is full of people who like specific things, and that's that, come hell or high water.

How

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Absolutely LOVE this.

When this site was first started the red Republican blue Democrat was starting to solidify itself but not to the degree it is now. Now you see the marketing and social media accounts of both parties are identified with there colors.

It’s time the state avatars line up with it.

Absolutely not.  The traditional Atlas choices of Red=Democrat and Blue=Republican should remain those used for avatars and the default color choices for maps. Tho, the ability to choose colors other than the defaults for maps is much appreciated.

[Santander]

Why are Tilt and Lean separate ratings? It makes sense to split hairs to such an absurd degree. Every major predictor uses Lean/Likely/Safe.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I really don't like this updated design at all. It just doesn't work with the Atlas colors. I feel like the modteam or whomever is making these changes should poll the userbase before making "improvements." The same thing happened when the name and board icons of the site were changed, and when the recommend button was added.

I agree. It seems odd that such major changes are suddenly made permanent without any prior consultation.

I did poll the community on recommendations before. It was split. So I eventually went with it. It's a very common forum feature these days, so I don't really get the big deal.

Dave also just released features and took some minor feedback afterwards. I'm unsure why the expectation is changing for things I'm doing. I've also polled the community on other minor changes before, and what I learned was that the vast majority of people here didn't give a crap, so I stopped doing it.

I didn't change the base color designations for the parties, I simply allowed people to fully customize the candidates/parties/colors. As you can see, the colors start the same as Dave's - red for Democrats, blue for Republicans.

If you don't like the shades, you can use the old calculator.

I know some people think it’s an overdue change, but I think it’s a shame that this new EVC seems to be causing the increasing abandonment of the distinctive Atlas colours for the mainstream media ones.

If people don't want to do the old colors, then they aren't going to do it. One reason I started working on this in the first place was that I was noticing more and more people using other map generators and just posting images of their maps. This isn't like the 2000s or early 2010s. There are many options available for this now. I'm not going to purposefully hold things back just to enforce an alternate color scheme. I don't blame people, either. The previous map calculator produces maps that just look very 1990s. I mean, this entire forum is literally using code and a theme designed in the early 2000s. Like it or not, things have to change eventually. At a certain point, it requires more work to keep them the same than it does to evolve and adapt.

At any rate, if people don't like this, I expect them to not use it. I never expected everyone to like it. I know better than that. This forum and the world in general is full of people who like specific things, and that's that, come hell or high water.

How

Go to the Atlas site and follow the links from there.

[Virginiá]

Just one thing, I think the colors for Lean are too dark. The tilt colors are more what I imagine for leaning states, and tilt should be even lighter than that

Amazing work!

I agree - I've changed the shading to reflect it better.

One thing I did notice was that the default rankings when you load an election do not properly reflect reality, but this is because I don't have the exact election results to work with. The data sets it uses are no more detailed then the calculator page (30%, 40%, 50%, etc), so I can't tell if a state was won by 51% or 59%. So it is really up to the user to fill out the prediction map.

At some point I might try to code a script to crawl Wikipedia to get the exact percentages, or maybe see if Dave would collaborate on it.

Notice something wrong with NE and ME?

I fixed the issue, but unfortunately, due to the nature of the problem, only new maps from this point on will not have the problem. It was an issue with how the bbcode data was built, not displayed.

[Senator-elect Spark]

Thank you for your hard work on this Virginia! Was well needed.

[jimrtex]

Just one thing, I think the colors for Lean are too dark. The tilt colors are more what I imagine for leaning states, and tilt should be even lighter than that

Amazing work!

I agree - I've changed the shading to reflect it better.

One thing I did notice was that the default rankings when you load an election do not properly reflect reality, but this is because I don't have the exact election results to work with. The data sets it uses are no more detailed then the calculator page (30%, 40%, 50%, etc), so I can't tell if a state was won by 51% or 59%. So it is really up to the user to fill out the prediction map.

At some point I might try to code a script to crawl Wikipedia to get the exact percentages, or maybe see if Dave would collaborate on it.

Notice something wrong with NE and ME?

I fixed the issue, but unfortunately, due to the nature of the problem, only new maps from this point on will not have the problem. It was an issue with how the bbcode data was built, not displayed.

What is the fourth field for each State?

[Virginiá]

What is the fourth field for each State?

It's actually for the EV text label you've asked for, but I'm not finished with it. I just realized I included parts of that unfinished code in this update and removed it.

I've mostly finished the label code but I need to rebuild the position coordinates for each label on the canvas before I can push that update. Will take more time.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Visual monstrosity but functionally superior. My one additional grievance is lack of orange.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Visual monstrosity but functionally superior. My one additional grievance is lack of orange.

Seconded (your additional grievance, that is).

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Might we possibly please have a link to the old map generator somewhere on the new map generator page?

There's some great stuff about the new map but major drawback I've noticed is that the shades don't correspond to the maps on the main site, and so I can't easily compare to the IRL results and it's harder to recognize what the shades represent.  So for now I will probably save the new map for when I want to do things like change EVs.

[Del Tachi]

Might we possibly please have a link to the old map generator somewhere on the new map generator page?

There's some great stuff about the new map but major drawback I've noticed is that the shades don't correspond to the maps on the main site, and so I can't easily compare to the IRL results and it's harder to recognize what the shades represent.  So for now I will probably save the new map for when I want to do things like change EVs.

Agreed.  That the colors used on the new EV calculator don't reflect colors anywhere else on the site is a major drawback, IMO

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Might we possibly please have a link to the old map generator somewhere on the new map generator page?

There's some great stuff about the new map but major drawback I've noticed is that the shades don't correspond to the maps on the main site, and so I can't easily compare to the IRL results and it's harder to recognize what the shades represent.  So for now I will probably save the new map for when I want to do things like change EVs.

Agreed.  That the colors used on the new EV calculator don't reflect colors anywhere else on the site is a major drawback, IMO

Also agree with this. Is it possible to keep the EV calculator but return to the original shade palette?

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

I think PA should put to D>40% instead since Biden didn't pass 50% here.

By the way the new format look great!

The official Pennsylvania certified results have Biden at 50.01%, from the Pennsylvania Pressroom.

[Former President tack50]

I like the new calculator and it's a great thing, but I feel that "Atlas colours" really only work when you are using the old school map, and when using the new calculator I often end up going with red=republican and blue=Democrat.

There is nothing particularly wrong with that though.

[Virginiá]

The shades are not something I really want to change - at least changing back to the original colors. Regarding consistency with the main Atlas site - I get that it's not consistent, but we aren't the same entity anymore. I don't really want to tie this forum to Dave's site so intricately as to even share the same color shades, at least when I'm not particularly fond of it, anyway.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

The new calculator is a huge improvement. I did notice a few errors, however. It would be great if you could turn off the split electoral votes in ME/NE. Also, the states aren't quite in alphabetical order which is slightly annoying.

[Virginiá]

The new calculator is a huge improvement. I did notice a few errors, however. It would be great if you could turn off the split electoral votes in ME/NE.

Toggle "Display results by congressional district on map"

Split EVs are completely optional, they are just enabled by default depending on how the state currently allocates electoral votes.

Also, the states aren't quite in alphabetical order which is slightly annoying.

Fixing it is more annoying than what the outcome is worth, for the time being.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Can we get a way to use the old fashioned EV calculator? This is cool and a vast improvement, but I wanna also have access to the old maps for the sake of simplicity and versatility.

  US Election Atlas: Election Results, and scroll down to Electoral College Calculator for 2020.
Still available.

Well yeah, but that's a lot of clicks.

It's a grand total of two.

from the forum it's 3, since there isn't a direct link to the main uselectionatlas.org homepage.  have to use "Election Results" then "Home" then "Electoral Calculator"

[President of the great nation of 🏳️‍⚧️]

Can we get a way to use the old fashioned EV calculator? This is cool and a vast improvement, but I wanna also have access to the old maps for the sake of simplicity and versatility.

  US Election Atlas: Election Results, and scroll down to Electoral College Calculator for 2020.
Still available.

Well yeah, but that's a lot of clicks.

It's a grand total of two.

from the forum it's 3, since there isn't a direct link to the main uselectionatlas.org homepage.  have to use "Election Results" then "Home" then "Electoral Calculator"

I suppose, but like I said, you don't need to go to Home and then Electoral Calculator, since you can just scroll down to the Electoral College Calculator for 2020.

[bagelman]

One future I'd like to see in the future is the ability to assign EVs to multiple candidates in a state, to simulate the Maine rule outside of Maine and Nebraska in a alternate world.

[Chips]

I never see myself using the old calculator again. I still think this was a perfect change all around.

[Virginiá]

Meant to do just a small feature update for adding custom labels but somehow have gotten roped into much more in trying to add pre-1840 elections. I think I see why Dave didn't do those years. It's a lot of work to actually get it right. Electoral votes in that time period start getting assigned in all sorts of ways the further you go back, with the common thread being that the winner of the state does not always get all the EVs. So now I'm basically adding faithless electoral vote support way ahead of schedule so as to support pre-1840 maps.

On a side note, would anyone be interested in extending the territory maps on Wikipedia? It's SVG format, and most of the territories are done, but as you can see in pre-1840 maps, since the states are all on the eastern US, the original map authors didn't draw the full territories (they just cut off arbitrarily). I'd like to incorporate these territories at some point, but I would need the full territory paths across the entire US, and not just portions of them, making sure to properly label each territory in the element attribute(s).

If you're interested, the easist way to contribute would be to just complete the maps on Wikipedia for elections prior to 1844. The goal would be something like this.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Meant to do just a small feature update for adding custom labels but somehow have gotten roped into much more in trying to add pre-1840 elections. I think I see why Dave didn't do those years. It's a lot of work to actually get it right. Electoral votes in that time period start getting assigned in all sorts of ways the further you go back, with the common thread being that the winner of the state does not always get all the EVs. So now I'm basically adding faithless electoral vote support way ahead of schedule so as to support pre-1840 maps.

On a side note, would anyone be interested in extending the territory maps on Wikipedia? It's SVG format, and most of the territories are done, but as you can see in pre-1840 maps, since the states are all on the eastern US, the original map authors didn't draw the full territories (they just cut off arbitrarily). I'd like to incorporate these territories at some point, but I would need the full territory paths across the entire US, and not just portions of them, making sure to properly label each territory in the element attribute(s).

If you're interested, the easist way to contribute would be to just complete the maps on Wikipedia for elections prior to 1844. The goal would be something like this.

I could try doing some maps in QGIS but I'm not sure how well I can match the design to what's on wikipedia.