Google Ads


Site Stats

New States and Changes in Daves Redistricting App

by: dgb

Fri Aug 28, 2009 at 7:54 PM EDT


I've just uploaded a change that allows the application to use voting districts in addition to block groups, as the building blocks for drawing redistricting maps. This is a step toward getting partison data (specifically the 2008 presidential vote) into the app, because voting district partisan data is available for many states. That will require a bit more work, but will be coming soon.

I've added 6 new states, all using voting districts: Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Mississippi and Virginia. I added voting districts to the existing state Georgia, so it supports both. If you have saved DRFs, you'll need to keep using block groups on those files.

Check it out at Daves Redistricting. Enjoy.

dgb :: New States and Changes in Daves Redistricting App
Tags: , , (All Tags)
Print Friendly View Send As Email
Thanks!
I can't wait to try it out. I have a few questions: When should you have partisan data in at least one state and will you focus on California next? Thanks.

for more election analysis, visit  http://frogandturtle.blogspot....




17, CA-06,  


Partisan data
I'm going to attempt to do partisan data for 1 state next, so I can figure out what form to put it in and such. Then I hope DavidNYC and Jeff and maybe some of you can transform data for different states, which I can then upload to the server. (The data form that David and Jeff collected for each state varies a lot.)

Regarding California, I will try to get to this soon (mid to late September), but it does not supply the census bureau with voting districts, so I'm not sure if we'll be able to get partisan data for that one.


[ Parent ]
Excellent, thanks Dave.


Awesome job
Thank you so much for your work on this.

Thank you very much Dave!
Let me ask a question for clarity, the new states have only voting districts and not block groups, correct?

Correct
My plan is to do everything now with voting districts, unless they don't exist (which is the case with 8 states).

I'll keep block groups for states that don't have voting districts and for those already supported, since you may have saved files you want to keep using. It's possible I'll support both for all states over time, if it appears useful.

Thanks.


[ Parent ]
Am I the only one who gets an error
with the new states?  The error says that "Unable to load all necessary data"

Do you use a Mac
and have you upgraded to Silverlight 3.0?

I'm wondering if one or both of these reasons are the cause.


[ Parent ]
Yes and yes
Plus a Snow Leopard upgrade a few hours ago (I wasn't even sure that Silverlight would work at all).

[ Parent ]
Bug
Someone sent me email on this and I've looked into it, but I have no clue at this point. He was using Firefox on Vista and got the problem with the new states. IE worked for him, but not always.

I've now tried Firefox on Vista and it works fine for me.

For this change I added some functions to the web service, leaving the old functions in place. The new client (chich you should get whenever you access the page) calls a new function to determine if a state is supported and now with what data (voting districts or block groups). Even if you had a cached client, it should still work, but simply say those new states are not supported.

If you have any more info on this (browers, OS, tried rebooting), please let me know, either here or by email (redistricting@gardow.com).

Thanks.


[ Parent ]
New Firefox?
The person who emailed me about this bug now says that with the latest Firefox the problem goes away. Please let me know if you're not able make it go away with similar measures.

Thanks.


[ Parent ]
Using Safari
the problem seemed to clear itself up without any trouble. I think I saw it only when I tried to open a second state in the same session.

[ Parent ]
Best Contributor to Amateur Gerrymandering Evar!
No but seriously, this app is awesome and you are awesome for creating it.

Kansan by birth, Californian by choice, and Gay by the grace of God.

Thanks!
I love the addition of even more southern states!

No offense
but I'd rather have California.  A realistic map for many of the Southern states are too depressing.

[ Parent ]
California
Understood. California is so big it's daunting. The others were easier to knock off and had all been requested by someone. But with this change I have a better method for getting and processing the data, which makes doing all of them easier.  California -- soon.

[ Parent ]
Thanks much
I know that California is really really big and will take much time.  And I think we all appreciate this great tool you have provided for this community.

[ Parent ]
Yes. Thank you, Dave.


My blog
Twitter
Scribd
28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)


[ Parent ]
One great addition
would be the ability to highlight VTDs by demographic info (%black, hispanic) and eventually political data (%D, %R).

Beyond that, filling in current districts is still a very hit-or-miss affair, with some spaces being left blank for no apparent reason.

However, it should go without says (but I'll say it anyway) that I'm very impressed with what you've done so far, and I can wait to see what you come up with in the future.  


Indeed....Dave Rules
I concur with Dave's awesomeness.

The absolute best improvement for me would be the ability to highlight plurality/majority African American/Hispanic districts to help with making VRA districts. Keep up the awesome work dave. I will totally help with any data stuff you ask the community for an assist on.



Copyright 2003-2010 Swing State Project LLC

Primary Sponsor

You're not running for second place. Is your website? See why Campaign Engine is ranked #1 in software and support among Progressive-only Internet firms. http://www.mediamezcla.com/

Menu

Make a New Account

Username:

Password:



Forget your username or password?


About the Site

SSP Resources

Blogroll

Powered by: SoapBlox