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Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/Archive 16

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Latest comment: 4 years ago by DemonDays64 in topic User:DemonDays64/State legislator subst
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Costa Rica's parties meta colors

Latest comment: 4 years ago10 comments4 people in discussion

While reviewing the party coloring in the Spanish articles and adding the parties logos I realized that there's a certain inconsistency on what we can consider the party's logo "dominant" color and the meta color. I know there are a lot of different reasons for choosing a meta color not only what color is dominant (specially if the colors are repeated) however I wonder why some choices were made. So I'm proposing a revolutionary idea; to re-establish most of the meta colors to a more suited version.

For example, lets take a look at National Restoration, the first is its meta color, which is apropiate is one of the colors, but this is the logo and this is the flag. Shouldn't yellow be more appropiate? PAC uses gold which is more suited to its logo and FA uses a different tone of Yellow and can use black also.

Meta Logo Flag
 
 

Similar cases can be made abourt other parties, Christian Democratic Alliance (Costa Rica) has assigned the Indigo, but has no Indigo in it, whilst Social Christian Republican Party has the red, which is one of its color but judging by the logo that you can see in its article Dark Blue is more dominant.

I would've brought this issue to the Costa Rica Wikiproject but is not very active and hasn't have any activity since 2019 besides I think is more an electoral issue. Opinions?

Thank you. --Daioshin (talk) 17:49, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I think Maho713 or Dereck Camacho would be the best editors to comment on this, as they are regular editors of Costa Rican election articles. Number 57 18:12, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Thank you Number.
Maho and I indeed were planning to make a possible re-arenging of the color codes but never really started, it is indeed an issue that we had in mind for a long time. The color coding is complex as many parties use the same colors and Costa Rica has too many parties. So I do not oppose any discussion about it.
In the particular case of National Restoration the original color used was indeed yellow, the problem was that the unexpected protagonism it reached during the last election make it difficult to use it as it was too similar to PAC's. Not that it is impossible to have two yellow parties in the same infobox but let's just say the 2018 Costa Rican general election article would look quite different.
However there are cases were indeed change can be done more easily. I choose indigo for ADC's color as it was the closest I could find to the flag. In the case of the Republicans the idea was to make it a little different from PUSC which traditionally uses blue, however based on the logos it could be dark blue for PRSC and a lighter tone of blue for PUSC. I would like to see Maho's opinion, taking into account that in case this is decided upon a lot of graphics have to be updated and that may also imply changing other languages' wikis.
One interesting exercise would be to contact the different parties and ask their opinion, would not be binging of course we can decide by our selves by voting or similar, but could work as a input. --Dereck Camacho (talk) 21:08, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Number. for letting us know about this.
Effectively as Dereck said, he and I have talked about doing this. As of today, Costa Rica officially has 139 registered parties according to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal; even though we only have 5 million inhabitants. As an example of the usage of many colors, the love that the right-wing has towards the color blue has made it extremely complicated to make a classification of distinguishable colors. Couple that here we have a "balcanization" not of the Left, but of the Right (e.g. New Republic is an offshoot of National Restoration which is an offshoot of Costa Rican Renewal which itself is an offshoot of the now extinct National Christian Alliance / Social Christian Republican and Christian Democrat Alliance being offshoots of PUSC, etc etc).
Dereck touched a topic that is extremely important, which is the unexpected protagonism that different parties have in each election. PAC in 2006, ML in 2010, FA in 2014, PIN and later PREN in 2018 and cantonal parties in 2020. That makes it extremely difficult to mantain security towards color coordination and congruence. Also, PREN's main color used to be yellow, with their previous flag being this. Now with New Republic coming into the scene we now have 5 Christian Right parties (Costa Rican Renewal, Acces. w/o Exclusion, Christian. Dem. Alliance, National Restoration, New Republic), which, lo and behold, all use blue as their main color.
On the topic of the Social Christian parties, I'm more keen on keeping PRSC as red and PUSC as blue. My reasoning is as follows: the National Republican Party (the precursor to both PUSC and PRSC) uses the red #BA151B, and the Republicans claim to be the resurrection of said party. Actually, I'd prefer if we changed PRSC from #E30000 (which is a bright red, more suitable for the Left) to properly #BA151B or something similar. On the other hand, I prefer keeping PUSC blue in reference to them now being the main centre-right party, and in most countries said party uses blue (UK Conservative Party, France's Les Républicains, Mexico's National Action Party), and couple that with National Unification Party/National Union Party being the other precursor to PUSC and they did use blue as their main/only color.
As a side note I'd like to let you peeps know that the colors I used for the cantonal parties I made them up while making the huge results table for the 2020 municipal elections, just checking the main color used in each party's flag so color conflict is present there. But it doesn't matter much because those parties are way too small and I use the grey #CFCFCF to refer them collectively in other tables and graphs.
Hmmmm I'm not so sure about asking political parties for their input. There's a reason why Costa Rica is better known for its Supreme Electoral Tribunal than its political parties; maybe we could ask TSE? Or its Institute for Training and Studies in Democracy?
What I think should be done as well is a definite list of parties from furthest to Left to furthest to Right. That, I'm not going to lie, it's going to be hard. Costa Rica's political history is very similar to Latin America's: parties were originally created as groups supporting a specific individual, not like in Europe where they're more ideollogicaly consistent. I mean, not for nothing two of the main ideologies of this country are "Figuerismo" (José Figueres Ferrer) and "Calderonismo" (Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia)(even though both individuals have been dead for a considerable amount of years). And don't even get me started on the First Republic era with Echandismo, Jimenismo, Acostismo, Volismo, "a la tica Communism", etc etc. But I digress. Putting each party in a line could also help on deciding colors, for example, Citizens' Action and Broad Front are both yellow and they tend to be next to each other ideologically.
In case you peeps want to check, this is the list of all registered parties. There's also a list of parties in the process of being registered. As a sidenote, there are parties that are registered but haven't participated in a while (National Union) or at all (Social and Democratic Centre)
I would also like to call DrRandomFactor for help. He helped me a lot when I started making maps (which, I should work more on that on this site) and gave me ideas regarding color usage.
--Maho713 (talk) 01:29, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with all said by Maho, and yes it is interesting that we have a balcanization of the Right not of the Left which is pretty much estable having only two parties (FA and PT unless you count PAC which is quite centrist). On the other hand for further complication the parties that Maho mentions that appear as registered, they will appear as such for ever unless the Electoral Law is reform as you can see here. It seems that according to the TSE the only legal way to dissolve a political party is if its willingly takes part in elections and has less that 3000 votes. Not participing in elections and just having a ghostly existence does not qualify for dissolution. Most of those parties are by all effects dissolved; for example Avance Nacional, Todos, Centro Democrático Social, and the like, their leaders already moved to other parties (Rolando Araya-PLN, José Manuel Echandi-PUSC, Rodolfo Méndez Mata-PAC), they don't make assemblies since several elections ago etcétera, they are by all effects dead, but unless they take part in elections they won't get dissolve, that mean someone has to make all the cantonal, provincial and national assemblies just to take part in elections to be dissolved, no one is going to take that effort. Those parties will be forever in some sorte of eternal limbo, once a party is created in Costa Rica it can't be uncreated lol. --Dereck Camacho (talk) 01:39, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
OK I see now that I was actually wrong and missjudge the issue, it seems that the color selection is logical and I should've checked previous flags of the parties indeed. My apologies to Maho713 and Dereck Camacho. --Daioshin (talk) 02:01, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
PD; regarding what Maho713 mentions of "for example, Citizens' Action and Broad Front are both yellow and they tend to be next to each other ideologically" the only possible solution I can think of (because indeed sometimes the graphics in the legislative archs look too similar) is to swicht the color of one of both by the other color, for example PAC with red and FA with black. On this however PAC is older so we can use the grandfather clause and say that is the newest party the one that should be changed, besides red is already use for many relevant parties like Movimiento Libertario and Republican Party, and PAC is more clearly ID on media with gold. --Daioshin (talk) 02:06, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
The issue regarding PAC's position in the political spectrum is quite curious, the Left accuses it of being neoliberal and elitist while the Right acusses it of the complete opposite (even coming with the creative pejorative term of "PACommunism" that is thrown at them whenever they ever so slightly turn to the centre-left). Then again, PAC was created by disgruntled members of both PLN and PUSC, with later additions of the now extinct Democratic Force (though many later defected to Broad Front). What Dereck mentions of the inability to deregister parties is also a huge complication, Libertarian Movement will linger in limbo for the foreseeable future as liberals move to United We Can, Liberal Progressive, PUSC and the probably-will-be-created Liberal Union. It's amazing how, despite having one of the most solid electoral systems in the world, we have huge flaws like that hahaha. At least we don't have ruthless systems like Peru's where a party is forcefully disbanded if it doesn't participate in each election and obtains at least 4% of the vote in all ballots.
And Daioshin there's nothing to apologize for hahahaha. Your comment helps a lot to see the perception of political parties and electoral issues in the eyes of people alien to the matter. Even many Costa Ricans are completely lost in these issues, Dereck and I are a deviation of the standard. So what may seem logical and simple to understand to us won't necessarily be like that for other people. So your input really helps in knowing that we should in one way or another change our display of information so it's easier to understand. For example, we work a lot on elections and the Legislative Assembly, but I know that there's a lot of work to do when it comes to articles regarding our Public Administration (which is, immensely huge, I'm talking 300+ public institutions) and other institutions like the General Comptroller, General Prosecutor, General Procurator and Ombudsman. That's precisely why I've started working on covering local elections, our municipal governments need better articles. So in synthesis, you don't have to apologize, understanding the Costa Rican State is a complicated thing.
Maho713 (talk) 04:52, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Maho713, now Daioshin suggest something interesting, to switch colors of PAC or FA due to both using a tone of yellow and be side be side in most arch parliamentary graphics due to be center-left and left respectively. What do you think?
I think that changing PAC for red is a no no. Red is already use in many parties like ML and PRSC, that would mean changing FA to black. Any thoughts? --Dereck Camacho (talk) 15:00, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
No, on second thoughts I think FA's yellow tone is different enough, besides a black tone would be too similar to PIN's tone (although in different parts of the arch still would be confusing). --Daioshin (talk) 05:35, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC on Infoboxes: Should there always be two candidates?

Latest comment: 4 years ago50 comments20 people in discussion
This is an interesting and well-designed RfC concerning infoboxes. Generally, a Wikipedia article should be a summary of the reliable sources, and where editors have chosen to use an infobox, the infobox is a summary of the Wikipedia article. The basic job of an encyclopaedist is to write summaries, and Wikipedians generally have a lot of practice at it, so we don't normally find infoboxes difficult. However, not everything fits neatly into a pithy entry in an infobox, and that's why infoboxes come up so much at RfC.
In the matter of elections, previous discussions have reached consensus that if the article contains an infobox, then the infobox should usually contain at least two candidates, even in cases where the winning candidate received a very overwhelming share of the vote. Like all content decisions, this consensus allows for occasional exceptions in unusual cases.
This discussion seeks to establish numerical thresholds for the inclusion of second place candidates. Wikipedians have not been able to agree on any such set of thresholds, so in some cases decisions will need to be made individually on article talk pages. However, the 5% threshold does enjoy plurality support -- even if this support falls short of an actual consensus -- so I suggest that the proposed 5% threshold could be a useful reference point in these talk-page discussions.
I hope this helps.—S Marshall T/C 19:55, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

In all elections contested by more than one candidate, should we include at least two candidates in an infobox (ie the winner, and the second place finisher)?

A - Yes.
B - No.

By way of background, this issue was discussed in an RfC on this page in 2017. The result of that RfC was There was strong consensus for A, "If only one candidate meets the threshold, then the second-place contender should be included. Since that RfC there has been discussion of this point at Talk:2012_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries and Talk:2020 Republican Party presidential primaries. At least one editor there has suggested we may wish to deviate from the consensus reached in the 2017 RfC. If we are going to do so, we may also need to set a threshold for the inclusion of second place candidates if that threshold should be less than 5% but greater than some other number.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 18:44, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Votes and discussion

  • Yes If there is more than one candidate, the second-place candidate should always be shown even when they have received less than 5% of the vote. Number 57 19:16, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
  • No If someone can't even get 5% of the vote in an election they have not earned a position in the infobox. The main 2020 national primary articles need not include the people who did not perform nationally. However for subset elections like Presidential by state (the example there being DC in 2016), it would be reasonable to include two to match the main national article. Reywas92Talk 20:20, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment – I would say 5% is a logical cuttoff: above 5%, and 2nd place should be listed; below 5%, probably not, as that's effectively a "one-party only" result. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
    • @IJBall: Yes, the 5% threshold is a good one for 3rd place finishers (and 4th, 5th etc). My understanding is that our past consensus is that the 5% threshold does not apply to 1st or 2nd place finishers. The reasons being that summarizing the race requires showing who came first and second, avoiding the false conclusion that a race was uncontested, and showing the scale of the victory (ie how decisive the win is by virtue of the difference between first and second place). Do you think the 2017 RfC got it wrong and we should be applying a 5% threshold to second place finishers? If we should be applying a threshold, is 5% the right one for second place finishers too, or should it be lower?--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 18:57, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes I do not see any reason to deviate from the 2017 RfC. Including a second place finisher properly summarizes the race by avoiding the false impression that the winner ran unopposed and shows the scale of victory of the actual winner, and by extension the level of opposition.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
  • No I think it is implied when the candidate gets less than 100% of the vote that they didn’t run uncontested. The infobox is supposed to be a summary, the results box is where candidates who get less than 5% should go, as per the standard for when there is more than one major candidate. It’s just weird that on 2012 Democratic Party presidential primaries there’s a candidate in the infobox who got 1.7% when it’s obvious by reading the lead that Obama was running for re-election. Smith0124 (talk) 00:21, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Striking sockpuppet vote and comment. Humanengr (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
    • @Smith0124: Several countries have held presidential elections (or similar) where there is only one candidate on the ballot, but it is possible to cast an 'against' vote. Therefore having someone in the infobox with less than 100% of the vote does not necessarily mean than an election had more than one candidate. Number 57 10:11, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Striking sockpuppet comment. Humanengr (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes Less than 100% of the vote for a candidate does not necessarily mean that they ran contested, it could mean that some folks spoiled their ballot, only voted for down ballot candidates or wrote-in random names. I believe adding second-place finishers will make this less ambiguous. Furthermore, according to User:William S. Saturn, "The 5% threshold was always meant for third place finishers. I was part of those initial discussions and the figure actually derived from Walter Dean Burnham's assessment of what constitutes a successful third party run." In my view, Martin O'Malley gaining less than 1% of the vote in the 2016 Democratic Primaries is insignificant, the election was about Hillary vs Bernie. But when it's a lopsided incumbent renomination, i feel that the election becomes about "Who challenged the incumbent, at all, and how successful were they in doing so?". Thus, small fries like John Wolfe become more significant. Like, with the 2012 Democratic Primaries and 2020 Republican Primaries, what story is there besides "Obama vs Wolfe" or "Trump vs Weld"? I also disagree with people saying that candidates with less than 5% of the vote have not "earned" a spot in the infobox. Second place doesn't count for nothing. Coincidentally, i have silver chess trophy in my room right now. Koopinator (talk) 09:43, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
  • No, there shouldn't always be a second person in the infobox. There are some situations to include a candidate if they don't meet the 5% threshold, e.g. being nominated by a major party (in a general) or being awarded delegates (in a primary). Leaving it open for anyone opens the gates for perennial candidates who receive negligible vote totals to be included. -Shivertimbers433 (talk) 20:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Why should a "major party" candidate who receives "negligible vote totals" be included, and a minor party or independent with the same vote total be excluded? Arguably, it is all the more significant when a less influential party manages to overcome the more traditional "major parties" to place in second. In the US context, if a Green/Libertarian/Independent overcame the Democrat or Republican to finish in second, isn't that awfully notable, significant, and a key highlight of the race?--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:40, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
    • I think this discussion about significance of major parties is a digression from the focus of this Rfc. The question is if we should always have two candidates. The 5% threshold as it stands disregards party, and if someone thinks that should be altered that should be its own discussion. Smith0124 (talk) 21:11, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Striking sockpuppet comment. Humanengr (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps, it is off topic if you word it like that. However Shivertimbers433 seems to be suggesting that we move away from the 2017 consensus that the 5% threshold does not apply to second place finishers, and then apply it to some second place finishers and not others. If we are going to establish a consensus about what threshold (if any) to apply to second place finishers, that is worthy of discussion. It is also not very helpful to propose we implement a new threshold without defining it. A second discussion may be required, but before we get there Shivertimbers should have a chance to clarify exactly what they are proposing.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 21:26, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'd prefer a pretty "blanket" application on this – in a(ny) two-person race, if the 2nd place finisher gets less than 5%, they probably shouldn't be included in the infobox, regardless of party. When somebody wins the race with 95+%, that wasn't really a "two-person race" in any meaningful sense of the concept. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 23:31, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
    • @IJBall: I agree with this 100 percent, though to play devil’s advocate it doesn’t take into account multiple candidates getting less than 5% of the vote but adding up to more than 5%. However, even taking that into account, if a candidate gets less than 80% of the vote it’s highly unlikely another candidate didn’t get at least 5%, and I can’t think of a single example of this happening. If a candidate gets above 80% of the vote and no other candidate gets above 5%, I think your thinking still applies. Smith0124 (talk) 23:44, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Striking sockpuppet comment. Humanengr (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes. As was mentioned above, the 5% threshold is meant for third place finishers. The threshold comes from a specific standard as explained above. Using it as a threshold for second place finishers is completely arbitrary. Moreover, there's no reason to give the false impression a race was uncontested when it was contested. — Preceding unsigned comment added by William S. Saturn (talk • contribs) 08:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes. I think that having only one candidate in an infobox (if more than one stood) creates a strong impression that the winning candidate ran unopposed. It also helpfully immediately highlights the level of support for the opposition. Domeditrix (talk) 10:10, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes. I feel common sense says having only one candidate in an infobox is confusing. It implies the winner ran unopposed, and even when the reader is aware that's not the case, noting the winner with a percentage less than 100% immediately begs the question of who got the rest of the vote. Loki (talk) 05:19, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Note - I have placed a notice on the Politics project talk page. If there are any other projects which should be given notice, please do so and note here. Thanks--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 21:12, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

  • No - I agree with the nom's statement that we may need to "set a threshold for the inclusion of second place candidates .... less than 5% but greater than some other number." I'm not sure what that number should, but there should definitely be a number. Clearly if someone gets under 1% of the vote it would be WP:UNDUE to actually show the person's picture. NickCT (talk) 02:32, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Note - I have noted this discussion on Talk:2004 Republican Party presidential primaries as recent edits were relevant to this discussion.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Yes All candidates and their picture should be included for historical accuracy. How did you come up with a 5% threshold? Are we not trying to show the record of the election regardless of winners and losers?--Tgmod (talk) 12:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
    • @Tgmod: This is clearly impractical as in some presidential elections there have been 40 or more candidates. Infoboxes are meant to be summaries of articles and anything beyond three or four people in the infobox makes it far too large to be an effective summary; it takes nothing away from an article's "historical accuracy" if someone who received 600 votes does not have their picture in the infobox, as long as they are still listed in the article's list of candidates and results table. Number 57 12:38, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
      • @Number 57: Well yes it would be impractical for the Presidential election, but only about 2-3 of those have nationwide ballot access the rest are write in candidates. Why not include the ones that got ballot access? Getting ballot access proves that a specified number of people want to see you on the ballot that they signed their name to it, therefore it should be included as part of the record along with the votes they received.--Tgmod (talk) 13:15, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
  • No per WP:UNDUE. The fact that the infobox doesn't say exactly 100% is enough to imply that the main candidate did not run unopposed. Regarding the question of "who got the rest of the vote" mentioned above, I don't think going with A will provide a satisfactory resolution. Suppose the main candidate got 99.2% and four other candidates split the vote 0.2% each, edging each other out by less than a hundred votes. Do all five candidates belong in the infobox? Does the second-place finisher belong in the infobox to the detriment of the other three who basically did as well as s/he did? The first option is too clunky and the second option does not adequately summarize the election any more than including just one candidate. I think the easiest solution here is simply to list the one candidate who got nearly all of the votes. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:42, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
    • @King of Hearts: Less than 100% of the vote for a candidate does not necessarily mean that they ran contested, it could mean that some folks spoiled their ballot, only voted for down ballot candidates or wrote-in random names. Koopinator (talk) 06:57, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
      • The problem with "Yes" is that it's making an absolute statement, whereas "No" doesn't mean we can't include a token second-place finisher if we want. I prefer the flexibility of deciding case by case what to do. In my opinion there is no significant difference between 1) 1 million votes to Candidate A, 100 to Candidate B, 1 thousand spoiled ballots; and 2) 1 million votes to Candidate A, 1 thousand spoiled ballots. At least, to the extent that we should emphasize the fact at the top of the page. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:06, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
  • No vote either way, but in most cases, the percentages refer to proportion from valid votes, so spoiled votes, undervotes, overvotes, null votes and anything else that's not counted for a candidate isn't included. These stats (invalid votes) aren't included in the infobox anyway. A 1-candidate race will always get 100%. Some places do have none of the above as choices, so it's essentially a 2-horse race. Other jurisdictions may include such invalid votes in the percentages, but for the most part, they don't. This is not readily apparent, though, so if someone sees one person having 98% of the vote, while no one else is with him/her, it may provoke more questions than answers. Howard the Duck (talk) 07:33, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Note - A similar issue was just addressed in a RfC which was just closed at 2020 Republican Party presidential primaries finding consensus for inclusion of Bill Weld, the second place finisher to Trump in that contest, as Weld had won one delegate. Weld also currently has <2% of the popular vote. The RfC was closed without prejudice to considering a threshold higher than winning one delegate (which had the "best" consensus). The closing comments do not address the 2017 RfC which was mentioned there.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 03:55, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

  • Again, I think that is exactly what we should be doing - deciding case by case. We should not make it a blanket requirement to always include more than one candidate, or set a hard numerical threshold. Each election is different, and a candidate who got 1% of the popular vote in one election could very well be more important than another candidate who got 2% of the popular vote in a different election that took place halfway around the world. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:03, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps. One of the problems with deciding case by case is that we end up with a lot of wasted time debating the infobox with every election. It also means that the infobox tends to change many times, during the election as editors argue the standard. And readers notice, and ask what the heck is happening on the talk page. As happened with 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries (main article and individual state primaries) which remains unresolved, waiting for a close. The Republican one might now go to a second RfC to try to finally decide the issue. Deciding these things case by case without guidelines, also means we will end up with vastly different policies being implemented across the project depending on the editors that show up on a given day (and perhaps their prejudices for or against specific candidates). It is helpful to have a guideline because it helps reduce the influence of those biases (we agree before the results are in). I think the 5% threshold (for 3rd, 4th, 5th place finishers) has proven a useful guideline for infoboxes. The 2017 RfC guideline that second place finishers should be included is equally helpful.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 04:32, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Delete the rule / don't have a rule for this - Some elections can have fringe candidates who utterly fail in the vote but become notable through coverage and should be prominently displayed on the page. Other elections only have one notable candidate and should have only that candidate in the infobox. It depends on the election, and I don't think one size fits all here. Ikjbagl (talk) 04:53, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
There already IS a rule. Or at least an unofficial guideline. The 2017 RfC consensus created as much. The question is not whether we should create a rule, but whether we should set aside the rule/guideline that currently exists.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 18:50, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
@Darryl Kerrigan: I changed my wording to "delete the rule / don't have a rule for this" to make my intention clearer. Ikjbagl (talk) 18:59, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
  • No: there are some cases in elections outside the US where thresholds are very important in determining major/minor-candidate/party status. For example, in the UK, 5% is the threshold for a candidate retaining their deposit. One notable example is the 2016 Batley and Spen by-election, where the non-Labour vote was scattered amongst joke candidates and far-right candidates, and to include them in the infobox would be a WP:DUE violation. Sceptre (talk) 18:39, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
The English Democrat candidate in that race received 4.8% of the vote and came in second. Not sure I agree it is WP:UNDUE to include her. Actually, the fact that nearly 1/20 folks voted for a far-right party in THAT election, might be very WP:DUE to mention. That is among the most unusual of elections. It was a by-election to replace a politician who was murdered by an individual holding far-right views. None of the other main parties (ie. Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green or UKIP) ran candidates out of respect. Notwithstanding that, the fact that nearly 1/20 folks in that riding would vote for a far-right party in the circumstances is quite notable indeed. In any event, I am not sure we should be making or unmaking rules based on extreme cases like that.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 19:05, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes: Even if the second candidate has a very low score, it gives the picture of the election. Wykx (talk) 08:51, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
  • No emphatically. I've come across instances where a candidate has received 1 million plus votes, and the next-closest candidate is a write-in with 35 votes. It would be absurd to require us to include that write-in in the infobox. There are races where candidates go virtually unchallenged, and we shouldn't present those by making it look as though there WAS a significant challenger. SecretName101 (talk) 23:03, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
    • @SecretName101: I don't think write-ins are usually considered formal candidates, and although I think there should be two candidates in the infobox, I wouldn't apply it to write-ins. Do you object to a formal second-place candidate being in the infobox if they don't receive many votes? Number 57 09:12, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
For what it is worth, as the RfC opener my thought was that "candidate" means someone that formally runs (or at least actively runs). Write-ins of fictional characters or politicians/celebrities who were not running would not qualify. That said a "write in" like Lisa Murkowski in 2010 should. While she wasn't on the ballot, she was very much "running" and won (of course).--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 15:08, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Fixing damage to election and other political pages by a now-blocked sockpuppet

Latest comment: 4 years ago4 comments1 person in discussion

From what I have gleaned so far, there is reason to suspect the now-blocked Smith0124 had edited many election pages in an improper manner — largely, from my understanding, to remove candidates from infoboxes. The edits were to over 100 2020 election and comments on over 60 2020 election talk pages; and several dozen edits/comments other politician/political article/talk pages. The damage to Template talk:2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and Template:2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries is in the process of being contained.

But the others need to be addressed. If anyone here is interested, I can provide the list of pages. Humanengr (talk) 07:01, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I have struck through Smith0124's vote and comments on this page. Is no one interested in addressing this malady? Humanengr (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
[Responding to interest expressed offline:] Here is the list I've culled from edits so far, grouped ~topically. Please strike through items as you address them. (Note: this list might be enlarged as I research further.)
  • UPDATE: The sockpuppet is back and been reported. I have reverted the presidential election edits. The others of the new batch of ~40 are gubernatorial races.
Prior to turning to political pages, this editor (as Smith0124 and Peterjack1) had previously largely edited highway pages. AFAICS, the common pattern seems to be declaring as fact a community standard where none had been established or violating one where it had been. (For an odd example of the latter in the highway category see this where he insistently violated this.) Humanengr (talk) 05:55, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Again, please strike through items as you address them. Humanengr (talk) 22:39, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Templates for deletion

Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

See

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 July 2#Template:National Democratic Party (Bangladesh)/meta/shortname
Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 July 2#Template:Zaker Party/meta/color
Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 July 2#Template:Zaker Party/meta/shortname
Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 July 2#Template:Zaker Party/meta/shortname
which have been declared pointless. Thincat (talk) 03:56, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Ongoing Discussion at 2016 United States presidential election in the District of Columbia

Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:2016 United States presidential election in the District of Columbia#GamerKiller2347's Opinion on Trump in the Infobox about the inclusion of Donald Trump in the infobox. GamerKiller2347 (talk) 00:19, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

How should we present elections with runoffs in infoboxes?

Latest comment: 4 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion
1996 Russian presidential election
 
← 1991 16 June 1996 (first round)
3 July 1996 (second round)		 2000 →
Opinion polls
Turnout69.7%   5 pp (first round)
68.8%   0.9 pp (second round)
       
Nominee Boris Yeltsin Gennady Zyuganov Alexander Lebed
Party Independent CPRF Congress of Russian Communities
Home state Moscow Moscow Krasnoyarsk Krai
First-round vote 26,665,495 24,211,686 10,974,736
First-round percentage 35.8% 32.5% 14.7%
Second-round vote 40,203,948 30,102,288
Second-round percentage 54.4% 40.7%
     
Nominee Grigory Yavlinsky Vladimir Zhirinovsky
Party Yabloko LDPR
Home state Moscow Moscow
First-round vote 5,550,752 4,311,479
First-round percentage 7.4% 5.8%
 
First-round results

 
Second-round results
  Regions in which Boris Yeltsin won a plurality
  Regions in which Gennady Zyuganov won a plurality
President before election

Boris Yeltsin
Independent

Elected President

Boris Yeltsin
Independent

1996 Russian presidential election
 
← 1991 16 June 1996 (first round)
3 July 1996 (second round)		 2000 →
Opinion polls
Turnout69.7%   5 pp (first round)
68.8%   0.9 pp (second round)
     
Nominee Boris Yeltsin Gennady Zyuganov
Party Independent CPRF
Home state Moscow Moscow
Popular vote 40,203,948 30,102,288
Percentage 54.4% 40.7%
 
  Regions in which Boris Yeltsin won a plurality of the second-round vote
  Regions in which Gennady Zyuganov won a plurality of the second-round vote
President before election

Boris Yeltsin
Independent

Elected President

Boris Yeltsin
Independent

We currently seem to have a disjointed policy, where we allow election infoboxes for mayoral elections with runoffs to include results information about both rounds, but national elections seem to exclude the first round. Using the 1996 Russian presidential election as an example, should infoboxes for elections with runoffs look more like the first example (including results information about both rounds of the election) or the second example (including only results information about the second round).

Note, that we'd probably edit the infobox template to better accommodate two-round elections (or create a new secondary infobox template to do that job) if we change our rules, so the first example looks sloppier here than it would if we'd implement this change.

For additional context, an example of a mayoral election that currently includes both rounds in its election box is the 2019 Chicago mayoral election.

SecretName101 (talk) 16:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

As I think is quite clearly displayed in the two examples to the right, trying to fit in both the first and second rounds candidates/results is a bit of a mess and makes the infobox far too long (it is over two screens in height on my laptop). This is probably the main reason for the long-standing consensus that infoboxes of presidential elections that go to a second round should only have the second round candidates/results. I would imagine the discrepancy with mayoral has arisen because different sets of editors edit national elections and subnational election articles.
I don't really see a way of incorporating first round results into {{Infobox election}} that won't make it too large or disjointed (with various gaps). The only solution I could offer would be some kind of wholescale redesign/reorganisation where {{Infobox election}} is reformatted to operate in the same way that the fr.wiki infobox does (see example here). This style avoids empty spaces where you have no second round figures for first round candidates or the empty place in the bottom left when you have five or eight candidates. Personally I think any shift should also encompass a switch to using {{Infobox election}} only for single-candidate elections (presidents, mayors etc) and {{Infobox legislative election}} for parliamentary elections. Number 57 16:54, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
At least for U.S. elections, a non-partisan election (like the majority of mayoral races) or a jungle primary where all candidates are competing against each other in both rounds the samples you're showing can make sense. In other races where there are separate party primaries, however, it doesn't work. The primaries are different races and elections from the general election. Carter (talk) 17:00, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I'd propose creating a new template called something like "infobox election two rounds" that would act as an alternative to infobox election for use on elections with two rounds. Additionally, I'd propose we find a way that such an infobox allow Template:Switch to work within it in such a way that two maps can be included (one for each round) in a more compacted style). And for clarity, partisan primaries are not to be considered a "round" of an election, they are a nomination contest, not a general election contest. SecretName101 (talk) 18:27, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
As for the comments about the largeness of a more inclusive an infobox with both rounds, sure they can be larger than one with a single round, but I'd argue excluding the first round sacrifices significant substance in the presentation simply for the sake of style. SecretName101 (talk) 18:32, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I strongly oppose the creation of another infobox. If any changes are agreed, they should be to the existing infobox. I am also not convinced having two maps is a good idea – it will be another factor making the infobox too large. Maps (such as that of the first round results) can be placed elsewhere in the article, such as alongside the results table. Number 57 18:35, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Of course, there don't need to be two maps in the infobox, we can work that concern out subsequently. The biggest issue at hand is whether the results data from the first round belongs in the infobox. SecretName101 (talk) 18:47, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Electoral history sections vs separate articles

Latest comment: 4 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hi, I'm looking for some guidance on what the rule/advice is regarding electoral history sections. These are the sections that many politician biography articles have full of Template:Election boxes showing their respective wins/losses/vote totals, etc. Many major politicians have these as separate articles, and I guess I'm wondering if there's any official Wikiproject guidance on whether that's preferred or not. The article that has me asking about this is for Maine state rep. Sara Gideon, who's article is receiving some added attention today after winning her primary for U.S. Senate last night. I added her electoral history back when the article was a stub, and in March Kyjama (talk · contribs) moved it onto a separate Electoral history of Sara Gideon article. In May, Smith0124 (talk · contribs) moved it back, and now the separate article redirects to her biography, though still is linked through Template:Main. Should I nominate the Electoral history of Sara Gideon article for deletion, as Smith0124 suggests, or is there a Wikiproject preference for separate articles? And if this is a question more for Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Politics and government, let me know and I can crosspost there too.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 16:32, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I would discourage separate electoral history articles unless truly warranted, no need to shove that information to a separate page. People just think "it's getting too long [which this article certainly isn't], just chop it up into multiple articles!" without considering alternatives. The best thing to do is to simply consolidate the results: A summary of elections like at Pete_Visclosky#Electoral_history and Julia_Carson#Electoral_history is way more concise and visually appealing than numerous election box templates! Minimizing the section using Template:Hidden may also be appropriate, though I haven't seen it much. The redirect at that page is fine, no need to afd. Reywas92Talk 18:16, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Sort by seats won or vote order in Results

Latest comment: 4 years ago11 comments4 people in discussion

Hello, I have seen this discussion about sorting by seats won vs. popular vote in the infobox. However, does the project decided sorting in the Results section (article body). Thanks. --Horus (talk) 16:04, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@Number 57: Thought you might be interested. --Horus (talk) 16:04, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

As I've already explained to you at Talk:2019 Thai general election, standard practice for results tables is to rank by votes. Number 57 16:13, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
What's wrong with asking for third opinion? Is it disallowed? If the project confirm you, then I have nothing to deny. --Horus (talk) 16:16, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
For smaller countries, Number 57 does what he wishes, but for larger countries they usually do their own. Almost all do rank by votes. Howard the Duck (talk) 19:35, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
Well, I'll get over it if it's a technical decision, but are there reason(s) to sort parties by votes rather than seats won? When people ask who ranked first in an election, shouldn't the answer be the parties with the most seats, rather than the second-most, albeit with the most vote? --Horus (talk) 19:43, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
One reason is that you can't sort parties only by seats, because it's common for them to win the same number of seats, and lots win none at all. If you started out ranking by seats, you still need a secondary method of sorting. It's better just to rank by votes, where ties are pretty rare. Number 57 19:55, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it's usually done by votes in the Results section, seats in infoboxes. This is because infoboxes are meant as overall summaries, whereas the tables in the Results section typically comprise results for everyone, plus other values based on vote numbers (such as turnout, invalid ballots, valid votes, etc), which means that sorting by votes is the cleaner, more comprehensive and less awkward choice of all available when it comes to representing results in a full-fledged table. Impru20talk 20:00, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
If I understand correctly, it is intended to prevent a tie, not intending to communicate the first place from the beginning, yes? Horus (talk) 20:06, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
It's one of the reasons. Another is because sources in some countries do actually and specifically sort parties in parliamentary elections by number of votes (it's the case of the 2019 Thai general election which has been mentioned above, for example). Visual coherence, presentation and avoiding a misrepresentation of parties securing a large number of votes but winning little seats (something not uncommon in FPTP systems) are some other reasons for it. Note that "communicating first place" is not really a concern in parliamentary elections because being the first or the second or whatever in those does not mean anything by itself. Impru20talk 20:11, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
If sources do that, then I have to nothing to argue. Thanks for clarification. Horus (talk) 20:34, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Template:Nonpartisan/meta/color

Latest comment: 4 years ago14 comments3 people in discussion

Currently this redirects to Template:Independent politician/meta/color giving these two "parties" same colors. Can the nonpartisan be edited to be a different gray shade (lighter or darker it doesn't matter, but darker seems to be the logical choice)? Howard the Duck (talk) 13:44, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

@Howard the Duck: I will get on it now for you. doktorb wordsdeeds 19:21, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
Awesome. Thanks! Howard the Duck (talk) 19:25, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
What's the difference between Nonpartisan and Independent? Number 57 20:57, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
Independents run on a partisan -- one that involves political parties -- election. Nonpartisans run on a nonpartisan -- one with no or there shouldn't be any parties -- election. Howard the Duck (talk) 21:03, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
@Number 57: I can't find any to hand but there are cases in English and Welsh local councils where party splits result in Cllrs sitting as "independents" and "non-aligned independents" and all sorts of other similar permatetations. There is a subtle, meaningful difference. As HtD says, the distinction can be between candidates independent of a party system, and candidates without any connection to parties at all. doktorb wordsdeeds 21:10, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
Hmmm, I'm not sure there is a formal distinction between the two, at least not internationally. I've always seen them used interchangeably and Independent politician references the fact that independents are also referred to as nonpartisans (in the first sentence). We also have numerous articles that list candidates in elections with parties as nonpartisans (and non-partisan elections that describe candidates as independents). Number 57 21:14, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
Another example of unclear use is July 1932 German federal election, which references Franz von Papen as a non-partisan Chancellor, or the infobox of 1998 Austrian presidential election refers to the president as both an independent and a non-partisan... Number 57 21:17, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
It is used interchangeably, but I suppose it's quite an important distinction. In some countries cabinet officials in presidential systems have never ran for office and I'd rather use "nonpartisan" for them rather than as "independents."
For example, the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories calls its MLAs "independents" when explaining what consensus government is. I wanna see Nebraska Legislature's take on this matter but their website is laughingly dead.
I've been updating Philippine local elections, and this is where the distinction is seen. For the "regular" members of local legislatures, these are openly partisan elections. There are more than 10 national parties to choose from and tens more local ones, plus running as an independent. Elected separately from these are the ex officio members. If you're familiar with the Local People's Congress where the higher-level subdivisions' members are elected from the members below it, that's how it works, only that at the lowest level, elections are nonpartisan and there are no party labels. You literally have to write the names of your preferred candidate.
So there are chances that an independent and a nonpartisan member are in one legislature. See the Manila City Council for example. Howard the Duck (talk) 21:29, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
Nebraska Legislature elections are still on a partisan basis, and independents can still win. There's in fact one independent in the current legislature, but all of them are "nonpartisan". That's also a nice distinction. I don't think these are listed individually as "nonpartisans" though, but on diagrams it's an important distinction to distinguish "officially Nonpartisan but unofficially Independent". If we have separate meta short names for "Independent" and "Nonpartisan", we should also have separate color codes for both. Howard the Duck (talk) 21:47, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
I think some elections in the US are formally non-partisan, but the affiliation of the candidates is widely known (for example, several Los Angeles mayoral election articles have candidates listed by party but a footnote stating "Officially all candidates are non-partisan.").
I appreciate the drive to have a distinction, but I'm just concerned it would be effectively creating a definition for ease of use on here rather than being a real-world thing (unless there actually is a formal distinction in the Philippines?). Somewhat more bothering is that in some cases it may be a bit misleading – for example, where non-parliamentarians that are appointed as ministers but are members of the ruling party – can we really describe them as non-partisan? Israel has had several ministers who were not Knesset members (but were affiliated with a party), and they are listed as "Not an MK" in tables of government members, usually with a footnote to describe any party affiliation they have.
In terms of the diagrams, another possibility to differentiate them is to have a black border on the exterior of the dots to denote certain types of members. For example, the nominated members of the Kazakh legislature appear as such in 2016 Kazakh legislative election#Results. Number 57 22:09, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
If they are listed as "Nonpartisan" in lists, I suppose they can be listed as "Nonpartisan" in Wikipedia.
I dunno about Kazakhstan, but other legislatures have nominated members and they do things their way. The best example are the crossbenchers with their own colo(u)r in diagrams. Some nominated MPs elsewhere are openly partisan though, like Singapore's non-constituency Member of Parliament so they use their own colors. Howard the Duck (talk) 22:21, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
Your example is also an issue in Singaporean presidential elections. I remember reading an argument about this, but consensus then was "people can click the article either way to figure this out". Howard the Duck (talk) 22:30, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
The distinction between "independent" and "cross-bencher" (and for that matter "non-aligned") Lords is a good one. We do have that distinction here and there are subtle, significant changes between them. Ultimately, we have here a change which should (in an any good Wikipedia article) be explained in the prose and I can't see too many problems with having the two colours. If the article is good enough, the difference would be explained and understood. doktorb wordsdeeds 00:53, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

RFC on standardized election infobox candidate image proportions

Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I propose that we standardize the image proportions of candidate images used in election boxes. Sometimes, you will election boxes where the candidates have images of two different proportions, or the proportions will differ between one year's election and the subsequent election year. This looks bad aesthetically.

I propose that the standardized proportions be 3x4. This is in use for many election infoboxes, and is an easy crop to make. It also looks good. SecretName101 (talk) 07:25, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

U.S. State Legislature election naming convention

Latest comment: 4 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

I have been creating a few articles for 2020 elections for U.S. state legislatures, namely state Senate elections (South Carolina, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii). I have noticed, however, that the naming conventions are not uniform; this can be seen especially at Category:2020 state legislature elections in the United States. Some state Senate elections use "2020 ---- State Senate election", whereas some drop "State" from the title (e.g. 2020 Iowa Senate election). Additionally, none of the state House of Representatives elections contain "State" in the name. Is there a consensus for which is correct, and, if not, could we create one? PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 03:21, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

This derives from the main articles about each body: we have Washington State Senate but Washington House of Representatives and Montana Senate. Except for three of the states that use Assembly rather than HoR, all in Category:State lower houses in the United States omit "State", while in Category:State upper houses in the United States, eleven use "State" and the rest do not. The articles for the elections should align with the articles for the bodies, which should align with they call themselves in RS. Reywas92Talk 04:52, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
+1 on Reywas92's thoughts on this. Howard the Duck (talk) 11:25, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposed merge of postal voting into absentee ballot

Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Some additional input would be good here. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 01:10, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Need help with historical Toronto elections

Latest comment: 4 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I've recently witten 1907 Toronto municipal election and 1908 Toronto municipal election and improved 1899 Toronto municipal election. Is there anyone with access to newspaper archives who could help with the following:

Sowny (talk) 16:25, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion: Apply for Newspapers.com access through the Wikipedia Library. I don't know how good their collection of Toronto newspapers is, but it's likely your only shot for topic articles like these. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:40, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
I have access to archival newspapers through the Toronto Public Library. I'm just looking for other editors to help write. Sowny (talk) 16:44, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hi, all. I need some assistance with this article. I spent some time trying to adjust to a neutral POV, and the work was immediately reverted. Could I get some other editors to look at it and make a determinations about my edits? Had one reference still to fix when it was reverted. Thanks. Pkeets (talk) 01:42, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

The editor above is whitewashing the page of Public Interest Legal Foundation. PILF is primarily known for its role in making false claims about voter fraud, and suing states on election-related matters. The editor above added content in Wikipedia's voice which was sourced to (i) The Epoch Times (a depreciated source), (ii) Hans Von Spakovsky (who is primarily known for making false claims about voter fraud), and (iii) PILF itself. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 02:16, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

"Update after election" template

Latest comment: 4 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

So to make sure to update all of the hundreds of 2020 election pages, is there some template that can be added to the top of the pages that will put it in a category if the date of the election has passed? Is {{update after}} the best option? DemonDays64 (talk) 08:46, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

You can add it to Category:Election and referendum articles with incomplete results. Number 57 10:54, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
@Number 57: oh nice. Though I think it might be useful to make a new category that’s specifically for upcoming/recent elections because those ones will definitely have results rather than all elections without complete data. DemonDays64 (talk) 17:48, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
The category is for election/referendum articles missing any aspect of the results, which can include invalid vote or electorate. These are frequently missing from recent elections (for example, the invalid votes for the most recent Jamaican general election have still not been published).
If the issue of incomplete results isn't what you are looking to resolve, I don't really understand the purpose of the category you are seeking to create. There is already the {{Current election}} template, which adds articles to Category:Current elections. Number 57 18:05, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

With {{Infobox election}} who should be put as leader?

Latest comment: 4 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

With the election infobox, which person should be put in as the leader? The president pro tempore? The majority leader? Doesn't seem so consistent. DemonDays64 (talk) 20:17, 20 September 2020 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

In West Virginia, the President of the Senate is elected, who will serve as West Virginia's Lieutenant Governor. AlSmith28 (talk) 21:00, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

2020 US State legislature elections lacking articles

Latest comment: 4 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

Hi all! I have been working on making basic state legislature elections articles recently. I joined this project a few days ago.

Here is a list of 2020 US state legislature elections that need articles; there is very lacking coverage of these from previous cycles but this year it's greatly improved — let's get through all of them! A few particularly competitive ones, which will be more interesting and of use to readers, are bolded. DemonDays64 (talk) 05:48, 17 September 2020 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

If you make any of these, I guess feel free to mark it {{Done}} and put your name next to it. DemonDays64 (talk) 05:49, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
List

I have always been surprised at how poor our coverage of US state elections is, particularly given the excellent coverage of local elections in the UK (for much smaller geographic areas) and state/provincial elections in other English speaking countries. I wonder why there is a dearth of editors interested in this topic. Number 57 10:45, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@Number 57: I know! It is really weird. I guess a lot of might is just that so few are ever competitive, with no change between years. Related, Commons has an incredibly small number of state legislative maps (but that'd make more sense to be caused by this). If someone could get the state legislature maps from here set up as SVGs (needs proper projection settings) it would be a big help to making maps of them (link to census shapefiles).DemonDays64 (talk) 14:13, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

DemonDays64, I have been thinking about creating a U.S. State Legislative Elections task force for WP:E&R, with the eventual goal of having a complete set of state legislative election pages for all 50 states. I know it's a lofty goal and it'll take a while, but would you be interested if I started that? PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 20:34, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

±

Latest comment: 4 years ago11 comments3 people in discussion

"±" is the column heading showing whether a party has added or lost votes since the last election. It is normally straightforward, but if a by-election has been held between two normal elections, should ± indicate the change since the by-election, or since the previous regular election, and why? (I phrase it like that because I favour change from the previous election, whether regular or not; it seems to me intuitive. If that is not the Wiki Way, perhaps an extra column should be added for an election following a by-election!) Nick Barnett (talk) 11:55, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

The change should be compared to the previous regular election, as that matches the vote swing. I don't think we need (or would want) an additional column for a different type of seat change – this is just an additional complication. If there was some significant movement between elections, it could be explained in the prose. Number 57 12:43, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
Last elections table: US House election is from the previous election. US Senate election does not have such table (Infobox has a seats change, but this should compare to previous Congress instead of the previous election as elections for this body are staggered). Canadian election is compared after dissolution. I don't understand the UK and Indian tables on what both are comparing from. The French table doesn't show changes. I chose these elections as there are mostly FPTP/runoff variants where the totals from the previous election and before the next one may be different. Howard the Duck (talk) 13:46, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
The UK and Indian are both compared to the previous general elections. Number 57 14:25, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
Apparently the last Malaysian, Australian election also does the same. The NZ election's infobox is based on prior to dissolution, while its table is from the previous election with a footnote about a by-election pick-up. I'm not sure about the last Mexican election, as PRI's seat change is different when you compare it to the previous election. (Both NZ and Mexico have party-list seats.) Howard the Duck (talk) 15:05, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
The Mexican one is also compared to the previous election (legislative elections are held every three years, so the election for comparison is 2015, not the 2012 general election, which is what you might have been looking at). Number 57 15:33, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
Yeah this is a problem on people insisting to put all elections held in a day in a country on one "general election" article (more so on a country with a separation of powers doctrine as I suspect Mexico does) as I used the infobox to navigate in between elections. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:41, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
I think the solution to that problem is to have combined infoboxes like this, where the presidential and parliamentary are both shown and have separate previous/next links. Number 57 15:56, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
That, and make the "general election" a WP:SUMMARY article, then have separate elections for each position. We're encouraging these for U.S. state legislatures (as above) I don't see why we don't do that for sovereign states. Re: Serbian election example: Is that option even possible for bicameral legislatures? How about local elections (people even insist on local elections on the same day included in the "general election" article)? See 2016 United States elections for another approach on this re: infobox.
As for results tables, I suppose the changes have to be specified on which it is comparing from. Canada seems to be the odd man out but it is specified on the table to make it clear. Howard the Duck (talk) 16:04, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it can be done for bicameral legislatures (see e.g. 1992 Romanian general election). Both infoboxes can be nested inside each other ad infinitum, so you can do several variations on them – e.g. 2018 Bosnian general election, where you have three different presidents being elected. Personally I am not a fan of having separate articles for different elements of national elections held on the same day – I don't think it's helpful for readers to separate the information into different articles. My view is that it should only be done if the article exceeds a manageable size. Number 57 16:09, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Should the column be "+/−" instead of "±"? "±" means the digit is either positive or negative, and that's not we're trying to convey here. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:58, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

User:DemonDays64/State legislator subst

Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi! I made a cool template at User:DemonDays64/State legislator subst. Makes it very fast to make a basic state legislator page. Any suggestions to improve it? DemonDays64 (talk) 22:25, 31 October 2020 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

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