Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/Archive 25

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 20

←

Archive 23

Archive 24

Archive 25

RfC on Standards for inclusion for election result maps in United States Federal and Statewide Election Infoboxes

Should a consensus similar to the following be agreed to?:

"Any result map included in an Electoral Infobox in an article about any election conducted on a statewide (e.g. Gubernatorial and Senate) or federal (i.e. Presidential) level in the United States of America and its territories must portray the election through either county (or relevant equivalent, i.e. parish) boundaries or precinct boundaries, except as follows:

- In the case of Presidential Election results in a state that employs a proportional method of distributing its electoral college votes by congressional district or other unit, a map in the Electoral Infobox may include the results broken down by the proportional method used, such as by congressional district or other method;

- In the case of the New England region and any other state with uniform Township/Municipality Boundaries, a map of a election result by Township/Municipality may be included in the electoral infobox if that was the method by which Election Results were reported by election officals;

- In cases where county boundaries are non-existent, such as with Alaska, a map of the next-best reporting unit may be used in the Electoral Infobox (In Alaska's case, borough/census area or state house districts); and

- In the case of Statewide elections that were dependent upon winning specified districts, such as Mississippi Row Office elections pre-2020, a map of election results by those boundaries may be included in the Electoral Infobox." Alexcs114 :) 16:17, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Survey (US election infobox maps)

Support adopting standard - I believe this policy addresses all relevant edge-cases, and is otherwise strongly well founded. I was clipping the 2022 NY Gubernatorial map to coastline today and noticed that we've got 4 maps there: By county, by congressional district, by state senate district, and by state house district. Too much infobox bloat. If we want additional almost "punditry" maps, they should be at the end of the article in a separate section similar to what is seen with the 2020 United States Presidential Election. This is also in line with a partial consensus developed at THIS discussion, just more narrowly tailored for specifically the United States of America. The policy is a bit broader then I would prefer, but I believe this necessary in order to develop a stronger consensus. Could potentially use a bit of re-wording as well. Alexcs114 :) 16:17, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
Also quick note to per-emptively avoid any confusion: I wrote this in a way that specifically doesn't touch the subject of legislative elections, though I suppose At-Large statewide would be included in the proposed consensus. Therefore, seat-change maps via congressional boundaries and what not would still of course be permitted. Alexcs114 :) 16:34, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
Strong support: Thanks for raising it @Alexcs114. Per all my statements made at the previous discussion on the matter (archive link), I am supporting this. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 16:23, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
To the closer: Considering the low participation in this discussion, I'd appreciate it if the closer can go through the archive link I cited above for background context. Thanks! —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 18:52, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
Support: Agree with reasons already laid out above, although I do want to seek clarification regarding Alaska: their counties-equivalent (boroughs and census areas) are just not reporting units at all. There are good arguments for either state house districts or counties-equivalent; the former is that that's what they report results by, while the latter is based more on consistency with other states. However, there are some flaws with county-equivalent maps, namely: 1) precinct lines don't neatly align with census areas, and more importantly; 2) mail-in votes in the CVR file are allocated per state house districts, not precincts or boroughs. As such, some discretion are left to the user to try to make county-equivalent maps as accurate as possible, which I personally think is not very good practice for something like Wikipedia. —twotwofourtysix^{(talk || edits)} 03:28, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
I was going off the options at Alaska US AL House 2022 Results, which is why I included them all. As long as the State House ones are shown, I don't see much of an issue with having Census Area ones also as alternatives, even though they aren't an official reporting unit. Alexcs114 :) 04:10, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
Support adopting standard. We are seeing an increasing number of maps in infoboxes lately, so it's a good idea to clearly set out what should be there and what shouldn't. If the purpose of these results maps is to give a quick visual indicator of voting patterns, then one map does the job — multiple maps, even with a switcher, is not necessary. I'd also note that they're not providing any additional context or value. To hone in on the page that Alexcs114 brought up, 2022 New York gubernatorial election: this election was determined by a state-wide popular vote, so breaking down the results by congressional district, State Senate and State House district doesn't really matter — which districts voted for whom had no effect on the outcome on the race! If these maps are included on the page at all, they ought to be in the body, in the results section (or a dedicated maps subsection). — Kawnhr (talk) 19:11, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Support in agreement with twotwofourtysix, with the note that additional maps still are allowed in articles; they should just not be in the infobox. Elli (talk | contribs) 19:56, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
Support One map max in an infobox. Additional maps can be added to the article if they are important to the prose in the article. --Enos733 (talk) 23:11, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Oppose – Obviously don't use units that aren't county equivalents or districts of any form (legislative or for vote tabulation). Beyond that, as this seems to propose, is more limiting than useful. Master of Time (talk) 10:03, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
@Master of Time: This does just that as far I understand. We do not want results by trivial jurisdictions like catholic diocese, etc. in the infobox, but they keep popping up every once in a while. Better to nib them in the bud before they create a complete ruckus. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 18:39, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Does this proposal mean that this image is banned? It does not show the results per county. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:42, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
The current wording probably does this, but it is not the intended effect. The wording might be improved to specifically mention that it applies to state-level articles, not national-level or county/township-level. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 17:36, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

technicality of a technicality, i suppose it technically would be but that was not the intention of the wording - "similar to the following" clause: For whoever closes this please take note that that sort of map shouldn't be restricted Alexcs114 :) 04:49, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (not the survey)

This seems to be a thoughtful proposal by someone with substantial experience in this area. I am inclined to support, but I suggest refining and improving the proposal before closing the discussion. My suggestions below are layperson (average Wikipedian) recommendations, as I do not know a lot about infoboxes or infobox templates.

Suggestion #1: Remove a misleading term ("Electoral Infobox") or create an electoral infobox template. When I search Help for "Electoral Infobox", I receive: The page "Electoral Infobox" does not exist. To improve accuracy and clarity, I suggest either:

(a) using a generic phrase, e.g., "infoboxes in U.S. (federal and state) electoral articles", or

(b) create an United States electoral infobox for use in pertinent elections in the United States articles. For example, Template:Infobox Canada electoral district "is used to provide an infobox for all electoral districts in Canada, including federal, provincial or territorial, and those with multiple jurisdictions." Another example: Template:Infobox constituency, which "is used to provide an infobox for electoral districts." MOS:INFOBOX provides great advice (I read it for the first time today) and WikiProject Infoboxes is a source for assistance (if needed).

Suggestion #2: Copy edit to improve clarity of expression. For example, WhatamIdoing's question above ("Does this proposal mean that this image is banned?") points to a lack of clarity that should be resolved before closing this discussion.

I do not propose endless deliberation, just a couple more weeks to emend and fine-tune. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 22:52, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Or maybe not bothering? I've not seen any evidence that we need this rule. We probably need people making maps more than we need someone expanding the already enormous list of written rules that nobody's ever going to read. The OP has made barely a thousand edits across all projects. We need editors like him to make a thousand maps far more than we need anyone to make even three more rules. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:26, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

We need this rule because see WT:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/Archive 24#Standards for inclusion for election result maps in infoboxes as one example. Every once in a while, we have Election Twitter bring their shitposting onto Wikipedia for likes, and although we are all in agreement about what type of maps should be included and where exactly, there is no good way to enforce it except "I don't think it should be here" reverts. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 20:27, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a "Results by Grand Division" on 2018 United States Senate election in Tennessee infobox and I'm tired of it like literally anyone else. This is nothing of encyclopedic value. If one wants detailed analysis of results by every political division in existence, they should go to Wikiversity, but leave Wikipedia alone. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 15:19, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

And then there is 2018 Iowa Attorney General election which has a results by congressional districts in the infobox, which has nothing to do with that election. No encyclopedic value at all. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 21:12, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

US House - inclusion of popular vote totals

I'm considering taking on the task of adding thousands of missing election results for the US House. It seems weird to me that I would do so without including popular vote totals. Currently, the only place popular vote totals for the US House live are on state/territory-specific subpages, which are sporadic (or rather, almost nonexistent) pre-2006. I have no intention of putting the level of effort required to create those thousands of subpages, let alone to do them justice. As I'm guessing there would be opposition to converting the last column on 1874–75 United States House of Representatives elections (and corresponding pages) to "candidate (party) vote total, %", is there another option? Perhaps the creation of reformatted equivalents of United States House of Representatives elections in Delaware for other states? Star Garnet (talk) 08:28, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

US House elections by state

I went ahead and overhauled United States House of Representatives elections in Delaware. Are there changes that should be made before applying this template to other states? Perhaps for multi-district states, elections would be broken up into sections by the map that was in use. Star Garnet (talk) 08:55, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Writing Collaborator Sought for 1924 United States Presidential Election article

I worked on this article in the long past, and I'd like to finally polish it down whilst also adding additional information; the problem is that while I am an effective researcher, I am not able to break down those sources, or in some cases build up my notes, and so I need someone who would be willing to take what I find and "put it to paper". If anyone is interested, please let me know. Ariostos (talk) 11:37, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:1960 Cork City Council election#Requested move 17 August 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:1960 Cork City Council election#Requested move 17 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. —Usernamekiran_(AWB) (talk) 21:43, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Elections in Quebec

There are several datasets that include Quebec elections: [1], [2], [3], but the articles including the data are a complete mess because I don't really understand where they are taking the numbers from. I'm lost. Could you please take a look at 1935 Quebec general election, 1939 Quebec general election, 1944 Quebec general election, 1948 Quebec general election, 1952 Quebec general election and 1956 Quebec general election, compare them to data included in e.g. the French article about Maurice Duplessis and say which is correct? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 16:09, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

I checked the 1935 election results, which are sourced to here and they do match that source. Cheers, Number 5 7 19:39, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

What I am saying is that the 1935 results as compiled from Quebec govt data (the link you posted) are different from the results posted here and here. For example, the Wikipedia article says that the Union Nationale coalition elected 42 MLAs (25 ALN and 17 Conservative), but the page of the National Assembly says there were 26 ALN and 16 Conservative seats. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 00:10, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

random question: is it possible that a member changed parties? Noticing that one page says "were elected" and the other says "were". I'll try to take a deeper look later Elinruby (talk) 04:45, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Haven't hada chance to look at this much, but there's that one independent liberal that might have something to do with the discrepancy in 1935. I also see that the numbers are totaled on the Wikipedia page but not on the source. which probably isn't good. But I don't think I understand the problem. A wikipedia page and its source are different? Is it differnt from all the sources, or do they all have different numbers? Elinruby (talk) 15:48, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

White space

I had asked about a white space issue when transcluding election results at WP:Scotland but had no luck and wondered if anyone here might know what the answer is. Thanks. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 10:07, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Accuracy of 1927 Liberian general election

Greetings everyone. I started a brief discussion about the accuracy of the number of votes in the 1927 Liberian general election at Talk:1927 Liberian general election#Number of votes. Please feel free to contribute, as this could use more research. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 11:28, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

German elections: "Zweitstimmendeckung"?

The lead in Overhang seat says, "The electoral reform in Germany removed the overhang seats, and replaced with Zweitstimmendeckung." The lead in Leveling seat says, "The electoral reform in Germany 2023 removed the leveling seats, and replaced with Zweitstimmendeckung." This is not actually useful information; not only do we need a translation for "Zweitstimmendeckung" (which Google Translate says means "second vote coverage"), we also need a link to an article that explains what it means. -- Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:32, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree. I think in general we should try to translate German political/electoral term into an appropriate English term. Second vote coverage, would be a better term to use. The explanation on overhang seat is kind of wrong. It's not so much the case that overhang seats were removed and replaced with second vote coverage for German federal elections. It's more that the system was changed so that overhang seats are no longer allocated - i.e. they are no longer seats. Ideally the Electoral system of Germany article would contain a section more fully explaining what it means that not all constituency winners are neccesarily elected. In Next German federal election I did add the following sentence to try to briefly explain what it means:

"If a party wins more constituency seats in a state than it is proportionally entitled to in that state, it will only be awarded the amount of constituency seats it is proportionally entitled to; a number of its constituency winners would be excluded from the Bundestag, in order of those that received the smallest vote shares."

This explanation could almost certainly be improved and made more understandable, but it does at least try to explain the essence of the new system. Namely that, under the new system, it is no longer enough for a party's candidate to get the most constituency votes in a constituency. The candidate's party must also be proportionally entitled to that many seats through its party (or second) votes in that state. If a party doesn't have the votes to entitle it to that many constituency seats, the party's weakest constituency winners are not elected. Gust Justice (talk) 13:22, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Institutional memory

More generally, where are guidelines for this project kept? I know there has been a lot of discussion about endorsements, for example -- what criteria are required for the endorsing person or entity, how the endorsement is referenced, what references are acceptable, what constitutes an endorsement -- but I can't find anything. Searching through the archives here might lead to links to the villiage pump, but those links are swept away by an automatic archiver (as they often are here, too).

Does this project catalog its guidelines and policies in any way? -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:28, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

With respect to your specific question, the answers are at WP:ENDORSE. Bondegezou (talk) 09:46, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. But what about the more general issue? -- Mikeblas (talk) 23:09, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Largely un-referenced

It seems like almost all Canadian Federal election articles (like 1930 Canadian federal election and [[1900 Canadian federal election) have sections with no specific verifiable reference for the results, or no references at all. And dozens and dozens of regional Canadian templates (like {{1979 Canadian federal election/Trois-Rivières}} and {{1974 Canadian federal election/Quebec East }}) are entirely unreferenced -- there is absolutely no source for any of the quantitative results given.

What's the best course of action to remedy this? I don't have any sources available, and there's also WP:ONUS -- should they all be marked unreferenced? Or all removed until they can be referenced? Do verifiability standards somehow not apply to these articles? -- Mikeblas (talk) 23:19, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

They do apply. I would try to find a reference for said information. If not then either remove it (which might be wide reaching so I would want to hear what others think) or label it as unreferenced. Gust Justice (talk) 13:03, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Future-class

Hello project members! Note that per WP:PIQA, all the class ratings are being harmonised across different WikiProjects so we would need to remove any non-standard classes like Future-class from your project banner. Would you like to keep track of future events in a different way, perhaps by using a parameter |future=yes which would then populate a category. Alternatively it could just be removed and then the articles in Category:Future-Class Elections and Referendums articles would inherit the quality rating from other projects on the talk page, or become "unassessed" — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:20, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Future-class has been removed and the banner converted to use the standard quality scale — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:50, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Large directories of candidate websites in External links sections

I regularly remove large lists of candidates websites from the EL sections of election articles. Usually, I replace them with a single link to the secretary of state website (or the bureau of elections, or the governing body's official website for the election, or ...) The rationale is simple: the election article is about the election itself, not the candidates; the candidate websites are very temporal, with sites likely going stale or disappearing after the election (per WP:ELDEAD; and the "not a directory" and "link farm" policies. These policies collectively call for external links to be minimized, and using a single link to the governing body or department does exactly that.

Recently, BottleOfChocolateMilk has objected to my cleanup at 2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Maryland where I replaced the twenty (did I count correctly?) external links with a single link to the Maryland Secretary of State page for the 2024 election at maryland.gov. Despite the site-wide policies enumerated above, they insisted that I was making a "unilateral decision" against existing consensus and directed me to this page.

Where can I find information about the consensus to defy the site-wide linking and content policies that this WikiProject reached? Why should those policies not apply to election articles? -- Mikeblas (talk) 18:42, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

There's a lot of stuff that gets put in, piece by piece, by various people at different times during the campaign itself that lose a lot of relevance once the election has been decided once and for all — such as elaborate advance broadcast schedules (also a transient item in articles about sporting events), endless strings of polls and some of the information in debate calendars. Some of this is still relevant (who didn't get or choose to debate whom?), but I get frustrated by a chronological order that comes between the introduction at the beginning (usually just the lede) and the campaign & results that most interest me and many other readers.

I don't know where campaign-site links would fall. Sometimes, the candidate sites themselves can be found, live or archived, while election authorities' sites are continually changing and may not (in their current or an available archived version) be available to guide a reader to a particular campaign web site. So I'm undecided. —— Shakescene (talk) 19:57, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania has more than twenty external links, and 2024 United States House of Representatives elections in California has about ninety external links. I don't see how there can be much argument that these lists are WP:LINKFARMs and directories. I insiste they're counter to these fundamental guidelines and should be removed. -- Mikeblas (talk) 23:24, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Interpretation of endorsement guideline re: EMILY's List/Laphonza Butler?

With Laphonza Butler's recent appointment to the U.S. Senate, many citations for endorsements by EMILY's List in various upcoming elections have also been used as citations suggesting that Butler has endorsed the same candidates. The justification seems to be that when endorsing a candidate, EMILY's List typically also includes a quote from Butler, such as the following:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, endorsed Lisa Brown for election as mayor of Spokane, Washington. Brown is one of 15 women endorsed so far in EMILYs List’s Madam Mayor program, which was recently launched to support Democratic pro-choice women running for and serving in local executive office. EMILYs List President Laphonza Butler released the following statement:

“Lisa Brown has been a leader and an advocate for Spokane for over three decades, and has spent her career serving Washingtonians as an educator and a legislator. In the state House and Senate she worked to expand the economy, create jobs, and protect Washington State’s great natural resources, and she made history as the first Democratic woman to hold the position of Senate majority leader. Now, Brown is ready to take all of that experience fighting for our freedoms and serve the people of Spokane as their mayor, and EMILYs List is proud to support her. It’s time for a change in Spokane, and Brown is that change.”

Regarding individual endorsements, the endorsement guideline says:

Lists of endorsements should only include endorsements which are specifically articulated as "endorsements".

I'm not highlighting the first bullet point because it's just a guideline and I think most people are in agreement that endorsements by well-resourced independent expenditure groups like EMILY's List are reasonable to include regardless of external press coverage. I think that the interpretation of the above isn't especially ambiguous in regards to whether to attribute these endorsements to Butler: the source is titled EMILYs List Endorses Lisa Brown for Mayor of Spokane, Washington and the body text never at any point includes Butler saying that she personally endorsed the candidate (in the above case, she's quoted as saying EMILYs List is proud to support her).

For me, it doesn't feel like the addition of these endorsements has been done in good faith – if that's so, then it's strange that they're only now added after her appointment to the U.S. Senate (as she was sufficiently notable to have her own article, even prior to her appointment). It only appears to be a priority now given the that endorsements from U.S. Senators are privileged in endorsements lists on U.S. election articles relative to other endorsements (appearing at the top), while endorsements by individuals are listed at the very bottom of endorsement boxes.

As an analogous case, Let America Vote, another Democratic independent expenditure group, is headed by Jason Kander (who is notable in his own right, like Butler) and the first 10 articles I checked where LAV is cited as an endorser do not also cite Kander as an endorser using the same references; in a few cases, Kander is cited as an endorsement, but only because he endorsed a candidate himself separately from LAV.

In conclusion, I don't think that citations of EMILY's List as an endorser should not be used to attribute endorsements to Butler, but I'm open to further discussion and clarification of the endorsement guideline, and if the consensus view is that language as above can be considered personal endorsements, then I think it would be a good step to update the endorsement guidelines to say so. 67.170.42.135 (talk) 01:13, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that and I agree with your position. Butler made these endorsements while representing her organisation EMILYs List and not herself. I do note that the reason why they're only added after her appointment is presumably because she only became notable in the eyes of many people at that time. —twotwofourtysix^{(talk || edits)} 12:52, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Userbox participants

Hello, I just wanted to let members know there is now another userbox available for those who are participating in this project, thank you.

Wikitext

userbox

where used

{{User WikiProject E&R}}

This user is a member of
WikiProject Elections and Referendums.

linked pages

- Jerium (talk) 16:59, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Your input is needed

There is a dispute as to whether partisan affiliations should be included in a municipal election which uses a non-partisan ballot. Please comment here.--User:Namiba 18:11, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Generally speaking, I would go by how RS treat the situation. Eg, if it's non partisan but media says things like "X candidate, who is aligned with the Y party", it's probably safe to use similar wording. Ashvio (talk) 07:37, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Request for input on post-Yugoslav-breakup election article naming

We had a discussion relisted at Talk:May 1992 Yugoslavian parliamentary election#Requested move 3 November 2023 that could benefit from the input of people who have knowledge of this topic area, please check it out. --Joy (talk) 09:16, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

1855 Kansas Territory elections

Anyone interested in peaking over the "1855 Kansas Territory elections" article I'm working on? I'm trying to base most of the info off the 1856 "Report of the Special Committee Appointed to Investigate the Troubles in Kansas," published by the House of Representatives. The problem is that this report is riddled with math errors (e.g., sometimes totals are erroneously calculated; sometimes scattered votes are counted in the "total votes" category, sometimes they aren't), and the table on page 32 that reports some of the territorial house results is a jumbled mess. For these instances, I've used Andreas's History of Kansas to fill in the blanks, so to speak. I've added a lot of explanatory notes to clear some confusion up, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!--17:56, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

FiveThirtyEight

Let's just say this article is in some serious need of attention from people following the US polling biz. CapnZapp (talk) 21:31, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Party mergers

Say two parties merge in between elections and the new party wins a seat won in the previousl election by one of the parties that merged to form it. Should it use election box hold or election box gain TheHaloVeteran2 (talk) 18:31, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

It's a hold IMO. In an overall results table the seat change would be based on the two parties' total at the previous election and the new party's total in this one. Cheers, Number 5 7 21:22, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Trivia

Hi all, I think it is well past time that something is done about the epidemic of people adding unsourced and/or mundane trivia to article leads. We need to define some specific standard for trivia that should be added to election articles, and it needs to be clearer to less prolific editors that other Wikipedia articles are not sufficient sources for trivia. AveryTheComrade (talk) 06:20, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

I could not agree more that we need clear standards for trivia. I think all of it should be sourced, outside of the lede, and relevant to whatever section it is included in at a minimum, to start. Przemysl15 (talk) 02:58, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Canadian election template bonanza

Hi, I was wondering if someone can help with an issue effecting a number of templates about various Canadian elections. An editor went through and tagged hundreds of templates, such as Template:1980 Canadian federal election/Don Valley East as unreferenced, and rightly so because it has no references. This has created two issues: first, every article that uses this template being tagged as unreferenced, regardless of the number of citations it actually has. Secondly, when looking at other Canadian election templates with citations, it becomes clear that these are not often direct, immediately verifiable references and you would have to download csv files to get the data. Are the data present on the website, yes; are they in a format that lets the reader get to them without doing a bunch of additional legwork, no.

Is there a standard for historical election data and how much clicking-through is acceptable for a reference? I don't want to leave the templates unreferenced entirely but this is a widespread issue, as the editor who created most of the election templates did not include references for most of these. It's a mess! If anyone is reading this, please ping me and hopefully we can work on this. Thanks! Kazamzam (talk) 05:15, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Who Made Huckabee?

Who Made Huckabee? has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Spinixster (chat!) 04:41, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Analysis sections of U.S. election articles

A lot of U.S. election articles, specifically articles about individual states in the 2020 presidential election, have very detailed analysis sections. For example, 2020 United States presidential election in Texas and 2020 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania. What content belongs in these sections?

IMO, these analysis sections contain a lot of non-encyclopedic, tangential, and redundant content: detailed speculation about issues that are not explicitly relevant to that state, the state’s political history going back many presidential elections, prose about various demographics from exit polls. I’m also unsure about prose discussing the results in various counties, cities, metro areas, etc., that aren’t discussed in analyses in other sources.

On the other hand, there are a lot of things that definitely belong in the analysis section (or somewhere else in the article) for a particular state: the candidates’ policies and events that are explicitly related to that state, analysis from reliable sources about the election in that state, notable and interesting statistics (e.g. “this is the first time since year X that county Y has voted for Z”), exit polls in table format. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 02:07, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

To clarify for one particular example, prose about exit polls, I generally don't think this should be included in the article if tables are already present. When the exit poll tables are included in the article, simply restating exit poll percentages is redundant and not noteworthy. Performing analysis of the exit poll stats without citing other sources is generally original research, and shouldn't be included either. The only situation, in my view, where exit poll stats can reasonably be restated is in a section analyzing a specific demographic, if sources other than exit polls discuss this demographic. Even then, if these sources don't cite the exit polls, the stats should generally only be briefly mentioned to avoid original research. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 20:13, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Unreferenced election results templates

There are a few thousand templates to do with Canadian election results. There are many templates which are single-use templates, which should be substituted back into their single articles and deleted. Many are unreferenced, which is concerning.

There are far too many examples to list, but using some patterns. Let's start with {{1872 Canadian federal election/Dorchester}}:

{{1872 Canadian federal election/Dorchester}}: this is unreferenced, though it is used from two different articles.
- Seems like all 1872 Canadian Federal Election templates are unreferenced. There are a couple dozen, one for each Canadian federal electoral district.
- Spot-checking each year, (1867, 1872, 1874, 1878, 1882, ..., 1940, ..., 1958, ..., 1962) there are no referenes.
- Spot-checking again, (1930, ... 1940, ..., 1958, ..., 1962) the templates are used only once.

Aside from the "Canadian federal election" series, there are other series -- like general elections for city (district? Is this called a "riding"?) in each province or territory:

{{1871 British Columbia general election/Victoria}}, no references
{{1871 Ontario general election/Addington}}, no references
{{1871 Ontario general election/Russell}}, no references, used once

Again, there are numerous templates in this "general election" pattern for each provice and area, for each year.

Another group are federal and provincial "by-elections". Again, these exist by provice and area:

{{1878 British Columbia provincial by-elections/Victoria}}, no references, used once
{{1875 Canadian federal by-elections/Victoria, Nova Scotia}}, no references, used once
{{1875 Ontario provincial by-elections/Halton}}, inspecific reference (to 420-page document), used once

Each of these 8000-some templates that is unreferenced will, in turn, leave claims in at least one article unverifiable. What is the best way to clean up this issue? -- Mikeblas (talk) 19:55, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Someone else pointed this out earlier. Presumably, the "Canadian" series are Canadian federal (national) elections per each district or riding to the House of Commons of Canada, while the British Columbia/Ontario/etc. are provincial general elections per each district or riding to bodies such as the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and the like.

Presumably sources exist, only that someone has to cite it properly. Also, these should probably be indeed substituted to an article. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:47, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:California's 1st State Senatorial district#Requested move 17 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:California's 1st State Senatorial district#Requested move 17 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 22:53, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposed merge at Candidates in the 2024 Russian presidential election

I have proposed merging Candidates in the 2024 Russian presidential election into 2024 Russian presidential election. Discussion is taking place here. (Sorry, I don't know why this wasn't automatically included in the list of proposed merges). Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:02, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

unreferenced articles

These articles each contain only two references placed by User:Doc77can. Both are to Google Drive files that are "access deined".

Are no other sources available for verifying the article contnent? What is the best way to remedy this situation?

Looks like these come from here: https://www.electionscentre.co.uk/?page_id=3686 and the site simply links to Google Drive. -- Mikeblas (talk) 18:26, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Addressing potential bias and seeking solutions

This has been on my mind for a while now, and I'm not entirely sure if this is the proper avenue to address it. I would like to cast some attention to it and hopefully seek any potential solutions towards this concern. Please feel free to raise any ideas or ways to address this, or places that this conversation could be amplified.

I've done spruced up a couple of election articles for ITN (the latest Paraguayan and East Timorese elections specifically) and one trend I have noticed is that there is a bit of a drop off in quality for what are quite important elections in countries with typically less attention put onto them. Whether this is because of a potential lack of interest, or that there is a smaller community of Wikipedians looking at the articles. Whatever the case is, there has been a trend of certain African, Asian, Oceanian, and some South and Central American national elections being overlooked article wise. We have had them be nominated for ITN but their nominations might fall through due to the lack of attention or interest in adding to the articles to get them to the quality needed.

I am aware that Wikipedia is a volunteer service and I am only a single person who has taken the time to work on some articles myself, with these edits taking up a couple hours to do and when one has limited time it would be a challenge, but it is a shame seeing crucial national elections be under-covered on here. The latest Comorian and Congolese election nominations had their nominations fall through for example, despite their importance in regional and national contexts. This is a joint and collaborative effort that involves a lot of dedication at the end of the day, and I do not want to diminish the hard work of others on other articles. However, I do have concerns when there is a potential dip in quality with regards to the national elections of several nations.

If there are any potential ways to address this, maybe setting up a taskforce of interested users for example, I would be glad to get the ball rolling for any solutions. I really do hope this can be constructive and that we can potentially come to a solution together. Ornithoptera (talk) 05:32, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Request for Comment at Talk:2020 United States Senate election in Maine

A request for comment on creating a localized exception to the five percent rule has been opened at Talk:2020 United States Senate election in Maine#Request for comment: Should Lisa Savage be included in the infobox?. As this is an article under the scope of this WikiProject, all editors are invited to comment. Toa Nidhiki05 20:51, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Short descriptions

I regularly see changes to short descriptions on election and referendum articles, and aside from all the nonsense ones added with the #suggestededit scheme, there seems to be a difference of opinion over their use, with some editors taking the view that WP:SDNONE applies (i.e. that election/referendum articles are self-explanatory and therefore short descriptions should be set to 'none'), and others being of the opinion that it is an opportunity to explain more context about the vote (with short descriptions along the lines of "Election for the 15th parliament of Fooland"). It would be good to reach a consensus on whether election and/or referendum articles should fall into SDNONE or not to avoid ongoing backwards and forwards (perhaps it can be done by a discussion if there is a clear consensus of views, but if not, perhaps an RfC could reach a conclusion).

Personally I would be minded to say that SDNONE is appropriate in almost all cases for elections, and in most cases for referendums (an obvious exception being when the title of the referendum article doesn't include the subject of the vote). Pinging @JaventheAlderick, GhostInTheMachine, Ffffrr, Less Unless, NoonIcarus, Sammi Brie, and Neiltonks:, whom I presume have an interest and/or take as I have seen you changing or adding SDs recently. Cheers, Number 5 7 20:27, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree that SDNONE is best in most cases. Ffffrr (talk) 00:24, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I take the position that setting a short description would be a net benefit to most election articles. Number 57 and I had a brief (though cordial) discussion over at my talk page, where I said that I interpreted WP:SDNONE by its strict definition - that is, it applies only if "article titles are sufficiently detailed that an additional short description would not be helpful". Since articles are generally encouraged to have short descriptions as much as possible, if there is a reasonable opportunity to make a short description useful without merely restating the article title, that opportunity should be taken. In my view, that "opportunity" arises in the form of adding context (what is the purpose of holding election XX) into the short description - for example, Elections to the XX Parliament of Country X. JaventheAldericky (talk) 07:42, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I should also mention that since that previous discussion, I'm now open to putting in short descriptions for Election for the XX President of Country X. JaventheAldericky (talk) 07:46, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree with SDNONE. My view is that short descriptions should generally be similar to what a parenthetical disambiguator would be, should the page need disambiguation -- but that wouldn't be necessary for election articles. Short descriptions that provide more info than that are unnecessarily large and should be avoided. Elli (talk | contribs) 18:30, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I know these are specific, but I can cite at least two example in the referendum category where SDNONE shouldn't be the case: Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, which has the short description "2015 amendment permitting same-sex marriage". The short description is much more helpful than the actual title of the article, but those seeking to change the name of the article would find it difficult to get consensus for that. The same applies with Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, which has the short description "2018 amendment liberalising abortion laws".

I find these are very helpful short description and I would prefer if they were not affected by any decision reached in this thread. I'm sure there are other similar instances in other countries and articles. CeltBrowne (talk) 18:37, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Those Ireland referendum ones are definitely exceptions since they don't at all follow WP:NCELECT (and I get the case why, though it seems like there should be a better way). Maybe only apply SDNONE to articles named with NCELECT? Elli (talk | contribs) 20:00, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I think it would also make sense for there to be an exception to SDNONE for NCELECT-compliant referendum article titles such as 2023 Polish referendum or 2023 Venezuelan referendum, where the subjects of the referendum is not included in the title (due to there being multiple questions on differents subjects). Number 5 7 20:32, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed on both counts. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 00:46, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree with this, though I'd say that on the specific example of 2023 Polish referendum, the referendum is too complex to briefly summarize in the shortdesc — SDNONE might still apply there for lack of an alternative. — Kawnhr (talk) 03:05, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi, many thanks for the ping. I recently added some descriptions to a few election articles since I have also noticed they are usually included in biographies. In the Spanish Wikipedia, the visual editor preview usually comes from Wikidata, but from what I gather in English it needs to come from the short description. I was unaware of WP:SDNONE, though, and I'm largely indifferent to what convention is used. I'll support whatever the community decides. --NoonIcarus (talk) 20:54, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi! Thank you for the pin! I believe that SDNONE is a good option in many cases, but if further clarification is needed in editors opinion, they can add it to short description. I think it would be hard to come to clear guidelines here as sometimes it's a matter of personal level of knowledge of the topic. Less Unless (talk) 10:05, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

A specific election has three defining aspects: the role, the place and the year. If the article title covers all three, then None would be a suitable Short description. If the title does not cover all three, then it may be that the article should be renamed, rather than adding detail via a SD. If the article is about a series of elections, then much the same applies – the article title should be specific enough and SDNONE applies — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 11:57, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm definitely in favor of SDNONE where it's apt. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 18:16, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

What about pages like 2020 British Columbia general election, 2018 Bavarian state election or 2018 California gubernatorial election, where the shortdescs are used to clarify where these sub-national areas are located? Is this a useful guide for international readers, or should they be junked? — Kawnhr (talk) 03:13, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:SDNONE, they'd have to be replaced with "None" as a short description (i.e no short description). As mentioned in my original response above, its really a pity if we deny our readers additional information that would have been useful to contextualise election articles. JaventheAldericky (talk) 20:46, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2018 Lord Mayor of Melbourne by-election#Requested move 4 February 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2018 Lord Mayor of Melbourne by-election#Requested move 4 February 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 23:26, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

RFC: should external links in elections be a directory?

Many election pages feature large "External links" sections that seem to violate Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files and Wikipedia is not a directory policies. Should this practice continue in spite of those site-wide guidelines, or should "External links" sections contain only a few relevant links (such as to the governing body of the election or voter's infomration sites, for example)? -- Mikeblas (talk) 00:38, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I'd recommend withdrawing this RfC. This isn't the correct place to request a change to a site-wide guideline, and its unclear how one would define a "large" external link section.

What exactly do you have a problem with? For example, if there was a presidential election with 15 candidates, I don't think it would be unreasonable to have links to each of their campaign sites. Number 5 7 01:16, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not proposing a change to side-wide policy. -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:42, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

@Mikeblas I would suggest that if you intend this to be a sitewide policy, you can start a discussion at the Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) page. As of now I think the rfc is quite vague. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 08:17, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm not proposing a side-wide policy. I'm trying to see if elections pages should have candidate website directories (link farms) in their EL sections. Here are some examples: 15 external links, 33 external links, 52 external links, 38 external links, 17 external links. This would be an exception to the identified site-wide policies given to Elections articles, and adopted as a best practice for articles in the project. -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:51, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Those are definitely examples of too many on one page. GoodDay (talk) 14:54, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree. And in the past, I've removed them. But recently the removals have been reverted with the claim that "every WP election page does this, which means the current consensus across the whole site is to include candidate websites." I can't find where a consensus to except the site-wide policies was reached, so I've opened the RfC here. -- Mikeblas (talk) 00:01, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

I have replaced the link farms at 2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Maryland, 2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Texas, and 2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Ohio with single links to relevant pages at the state websites. -- Mikeblas (talk) 19:11, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

All Linkfarm says is that lists of external links must be removed if they "dwarf" the article. I don't see how you could argue that a list of campaign websites at the very end of an article "dwarfs" the rest of the article. Also, getting one random editor to agree with you doesn't mean you have the all-clear to remove campaign website links from every election page. That is not how discussions work! BottleOfChocolateMilk (talk) 22:23, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

It WP:LINKFARM says at least a little bit more than what you chose to quote, and there's also WP:NOTDIR to consider. I opened this RfC to gather input from the project, which you said had adopted this practice in opposition to the site-wide policies that govern it. No explicit consensus has been discovered here, so the status quo is apparently just replicated behaviour counter to the site's policies. The site-wite policies do, however, have language against building directories of external links in articles. It is those site-wide policies that are the impetus for cleaning up these articles. -- Mikeblas (talk) 23:17, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Neither of those pages say "you're not allowed to have a list of campaign websites at the end of an article," so what you're talking about here is not a sitewide policy, but your personal interpretation of a sitewide policy. Both those pages seem to indicate that you can't have a page that *solely* acts as a directory. You have yet to explain how a list of campaign websites at the end of an article "dwarfs" the remainder of the content, nor have you cited any specific verbiage from either of the pages you linked. Build consensus first rather than trying to change the standard operating practice of the entirety of election Wikipedia based on your interpretation of the rules. BottleOfChocolateMilk (talk) 04:30, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

How is that not what they are doing here? The see a common practice that seems to violate the policy, and have come here to ask others if they agree. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:58, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree, and would also point to WP:EL, specifically "external links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic, information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy" and WP:ELMAYBE which suggests adding a "well-chosen link to a directory of websites or organizations. Long lists of links in articles are not acceptable." The criticism here is dwelling too much on a single word in the policy ("dwarfs") and not the spirit, which is that ELs are not to be added willy-nilly in bulk. Maryland has over 60 links! And linking to a campaign website does not serve the purpose of ELs, as it is very unlikely to contain meaningful accurate information about an election, let alone such information that is not found in reliable sources. GreatCaesarsGhost 15:58, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Survey

Discussion

"Most Recent Office" vs "Experience"

I notice in older articles a field on the list of candidates called "Most Recent Office" or "Most Recent Position". More recently, this column has been replaced with "Experience." Has there been any discussion around the use of this field, and what is appropriate to list there? "Most Recent Office" is very straight-forward and factual. "Most Recent Position" is subject to some degree a leeway about what to include. For example, 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries list Donald Trump]] as Chairman of The Trump Organization when he was much better known as host of The Apprentice. Carly Fiorina list CEO of Hewlett-Packard, when she had many positions in the 9 years since leaving HP. "Experience" introduces additional opportunity for bias and editorializing. Consider 2020 Republican Party presidential primaries which lists Joe Walsh as both a former Rep but also as a talk show host, and Rocky De La Fuente as a businessman but also uses the derogative "perennial candidate". 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries is even worse, with some candidates including private sector jobs and failed candidacies and others omitting (one candidate is called a "Disqualified candidate for Governor of Michigan in 2022"). I think we need some kind of standard here, or this field can be used to prop up one candidate while diminishing another. Trump, for example, is never referred to for his media roles or failed candidacies, while others are. GreatCaesarsGhost 16:30, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Minor candidates in county results tables for US presidential elections

In county results tables for some state subpages, only major candidates (those in the infobox) are included. In other state subpages, various minor candidates (those in the overall results table) are included. Which way should be preferred? Helpful Raccoon (talk) 02:22, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2024 Jerusalem mayoral election#Requested move 18 February 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2024 Jerusalem mayoral election#Requested move 18 February 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 11:54, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Election-related short description discussion

Hello, there is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Short description#Proposal to add automatic SDs to Template:Infobox election that will be of interest to members of this wikiproject. If you would like to help improving WP:Short descriptions on election pages, or contribute to that discussion generally, please feel free to join at that page. Thank you for helping WP:WikiProject Short Descriptions! - - mathmitch7 ^{(talk/contribs)} 17:33, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 March 5

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 March 5#Wikipedia:WikiProject Elections and Referenda/Overview of results, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 23:13, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:2024 California's 47th congressional district election § "Hypothetical polling"

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:2024 California's 47th congressional district election § "Hypothetical polling". –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:21, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Including expressions of indifference in percentages

Should equal-ranked ballots, abstentions, or other expressions of indifference be included in wikiboxes reporting vote totals? For example, if 20% of people abstain in a vote, should the results be reported as 50% support and 50% opposition, or as 40% support vs. 40% opposition? (vs. 20% abstention, which might not have its own column for space reasons, but can be reconstructed from the other options.) Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:49, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that would be appropriate. It can be mentioned in the text where relevant, and should be where there is a requirement to have a certain percentage of registered voters in favour for a proposal to pass. Number 5 7 20:03, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

To clarify context, I'm thinking of situations with 3 or more candidates—e.g. A, B, C—and a voter expresses an opinion between A and B but expresses indifference between B and C. For example, on some ranked ballots, voters may mark A > B = C > D. I'm leaning toward yes, because in many voting systems, equal-ranked ballots still affect the results.

(I'm not referring to cases like referenda where, say, 5% of voters don't vote on a question, presumably because they don't care.)

> I don't think that would be appropriate.

As in, excluding would be inappropriate, or including would be? Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:14, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Can you give an example of an election where this would be relevant? Elli (talk | contribs) 20:42, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

With pairwise counting (Condorcet) methods, highest median voting rules (like graduated majority judgment), and in many variations on the two-round voting system (where a candidate needs a majority of the vote, including votes for none of the above), equal/tied ranks dilute a candidate's margin of victory.

As an example, a candidate who wins a one-on-one matchup by 60-40=20% is considered more decisive than one who wins by 48-32=16%, even though the ratio of winning to losing votes is the same. The second election might force a runoff. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 22:09, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm asking for an actual election article this change would apply to. Elli (talk | contribs) 23:51, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

As examples of abstain being included: 2022 Nevada gubernatorial election, and other NV election articles, where NOTA is included. (NOTA votes have no effect on results; they're ignored even if a majority or plurality of votes are NOTA, making them behave like an unusually-labeled abstain option.) This seems to be the case across NV election articles.

The 2011 Irish presidential election is an example of equal-ranked votes being included in counts near the top of the article. OTOH, 2009 Burlington mayoral election excludes these ballots from the count.

I bring this up because in 2024 there's going to be a bunch of elections using systems where "exclude blanks" doesn't make sense (approval voting); it seems likely that this will increase in the future. Hopefully we can find a consensus that resolves this issue ahead of time, so we don't have to deal with accusations of bias as soon as we need to discuss a highly-controversial election. —Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 01:30, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I'd be in favor of adding parameters in referendum templates for "abstentions" as if they're a choice just like yes or no, but only for such referendums that mandated that. Otherwise, invalid votes are listed as per the usual. It's obvious primary sources may distinguish these in certain referendums. Howard the Duck (talk) 10:27, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Make a template for "By province" table?s

Why don't all articles have the same type of table? Would it be smart to implement a template that generates these tables instead, similar to how we have Template:Election results? Why or why not? I am thinking more about the proportional representation system with electoral districts and than show percentage and mandate.

I don't think it would be possible for this new template to be used for a First-past-the-post election system due to the presence of single districts.

Examples

1948 South African general election
2023 Finnish parliamentary election under "Distribution by electoral district"
2000 Finnish presidential election
2018 Swedish general election
2022 Swedish general election
2013 German federal election under "Results by state"
1892 United States presidential election in North Dakota under "Results by county"

Johshh (talk) 01:12, 4 April 2024 (UTC)