Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/Archive 17

Archive 10

←

Archive 15

Archive 16

Archive 17

Archive 18

Archive 19

Archive 20

US election disinformation contact email at WMF

Hi all - I just wanted to drop a notice here about a Wikimedia Foundation contact email address we'll be using during the 2020 US Presidential Election relating to disinformation on Wikipedia.

In the run-up to the election, a group of Wikimedia Foundation staff have been monitoring and investigating the potential for disinformation campaigns on Wikipedia (read more in this blog post). We have been working with other technology companies, external disinformation experts, and Wikimedia functionaries to explore how disinformation campaigns might intersect with Wikipedia in addition to understanding the broader landscape. Wikimedia projects are in a great position with respect to disinformation overall, but aren't immune, so we're making sure that we at the Foundation are in a good position to support the community in the event of a potentially high profile incident. Later in the year we'll share some information on how this work played out, any disinformation incidents that occurred on Wikipedia, and what we've learned.

If you see a disinformation issue on Wikimedia projects or social media that you think the Wikimedia Foundation should be aware of - for example because it requires an Office action or we might expect to see media coverage - please contact the WMF Disinformation Task Force at drtwikimedia.org. While this email address isn't quite as sensitive as emergency@, please only use it to report potential disinformation incidents, and not for general queries. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 11:10, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

@Samwalton9 (WMF): thanks. disinformation could be a big problem. I noticed the main page is extended confirmed protected — would it be a good idea to apply some level of editing protection to some of the important election pages (i.e. the ones for competitive states like Florida) too until it's all settled? DemonDays64 (talk) 02:35, 1 November 2020 (UTC) (please ping on reply)}

Standardizing templates in Category:United States state upper house navigational boxes/Category:United States state lower house navigational boxes

Hi. The templates in the two categories are pretty inconsistently named: most of the ones in the upper houses category are State State Senators (e.g. {{Pennsylvania State Senators}}) — which is an incorrect capitalization — while the rest are State State Senate (e.g. {{California State Senate}}) in the category. In the lower houses category, all of them are the name of the chamber.

Which format is better and should be used for the templates in the categories? DemonDays64 (talk) 02:43, 1 November 2020 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

Discussion at Draft talk:2024 United States presidential election § Now that it's November, when should we move?

 You are invited to join the discussion at Draft talk:2024 United States presidential election § Now that it's November, when should we move?. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:29, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Draft talk:2024 United States presidential election § Request for comments on which presidential candidates should be considered "major"

 You are invited to join the discussion at Draft talk:2024 United States presidential election § Request for comments on which presidential candidates should be considered "major". Metropolitan90 (talk) 19:24, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Trying to standardize map colors (for USA elections)

I noticed there was a lot of inconsistency when creating various election maps for the USA, so I created a list of map colors that were commonly used at Wikipedia:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/USA Legend Colors.

I'd also like some input - there are two sets of referendum colors I've noticed in use. I've been using the first, but I'm wondering if we should standardize on one or the other, for consistency.

(relevant pings: @DemonDays64: @MisterElection2001: @TylerKutschbach:) Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 19:52, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Why are the reds and blues for downballot and presidential slightly different? Best to have a single set. Referendum colors should be encouraged to be maybe green and orange? Red/green must be avoided for color blindness, not to mention red being the Republican color already. Thanks for doing this! Reywas92^Talk 20:42, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I have no idea why the downballot and presidential races are different - but that's how it is across (probably) tens of thousands of races. Green/orange is a good idea, I didn't consider color blindness - if you can suggest a good color scheme, maybe we could get some feedback on that? Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 20:54, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I know they don't match up now, but is there value in aligning the party colors with their meta/shading color templates (Democratic; Republican)? Also, should the same effort be made for Liberatrian and Green parties or for regional/local parties like Puerto Rico's PNP and PPD? For evaluating color blindness Color Oracle is a great free tool. Carter (talk) 00:03, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd go with a maybe on that. What I've laid out still doesn't list any official single color for a given party - just different shades used in maps. It's not a given that we need to change anything - but might be a good idea, if we're standardizing things, to actually get it right. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 00:38, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Election Page Neutrality vs. Syntax Standardization

I'd like to get some thoughts on an issue I have with the effects of standardization for the election infoboxes. Basically, I think we should have a policy that favors neutrality of the page header over syntax standardization, when the two are in conflict. I posted something similar to the talk page of the infobox template, but didn't get any traction so wanted to reach out here to see if others feel similarly or if I'm just on my own on this one.

Before the recent elections, the Page Image for all 2020_United_States_presidential_election state subpages was Trump's official portrait (as it still is for the states he's won, see e.g. here, here for page info). In my view, this directly contradicted WP:NEUTRAL, and the bias is especially prominent on the mobile app, where the Page Image is the large header of the entire page. Page Images are chosen via Mediawiki's algorithm (see here), and can't be individually selected per article. Because of this, I don't think editors spend much time thinking about them, but they do dramatically alter how pages are presented.

I slightly edited the state subpages using Extended Image Syntax, which had the effect of altering the image scores for candidate's portraits, and resulted in the (neutral) state seals being the Page Image (and thus being prominent on the mobile app, and in hovercards). Besides the page image, the appearance and content to readers of the pages was entirely unchanged. An editor reverted these edits, stating that my edits were against the image syntax standardization suggested by Template:Infobox_election. I trust they were correct about this.

I posit that the breach of WP:NEUTRAL (one of Wikipedia's core content policies) due to the bio picture being the Page Image for elections outweighs the benefits of syntax standardization, and that, wherever possible, election articles (particularly pre-election) should include images in such a way that a neutral image becomes the Page Image. Although the algorithm which picks Page Images is a bit opaque, it should be possible to do this with next to no impact on the appearance and content of the article from the reader's POV. Not doing this results in a bias towards one candidate, usually the incumbent if they appear first, but in other cases images for quite minor parties (see e.g. the discussion in the first link below 'We could select a literal Nazi').

A few notes:

• Wikimedia does appear to be aware of the issue (see here), although from reading comments I wouldn't expect a fix any time soon.
• On the desktop site, Page Images are relatively innocuous, and only appear in hovercards. The Page Image is very salient in the mobile app, however, which can make it seem like Wikipedia nearly endorses the first candidate in the infobox.
• I admit this approach is a bit hacky. Other but more radical fixes include adding a neutral image above the candidate photos (since position is considered) or moving the infobox out of article ledes entirely. My guess is neither of these would have much support. If anyone technically minded has a better solution, please come forward!

Infinitesimall (talk) 11:22, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

That seems sensible to me. Bondegezou (talk) 11:30, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree this seems reasonable. There's no reason for the first candidate's image to necessarily be the page image displayed. The only concern may be in variations of image sizes. Reywas92^Talk 19:54, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Proposed Merge: Justice Party (United States) and Rocky Anderson

Hello editors. It has been proposed that the article Justice Party (United States) be merged into the article Rocky Anderson. And one or both of those articles is within the scope of this WikiProject. If you would like express support for or object to the merge then you are strongly encouraged to do so at the talk page for Rocky Anderson. Thank you!

--Molandfreak (talk, contribs, email) 19:03, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

List vs normal article

I've noticed articles like 1960 United States presidential election in Hawaii and 1988 United States presidential election in California are considered "List-class" by this project, while other similar articles like 1988 United States presidential election in Hawaii and 1960 United States presidential election in California are normal articles rated along the conventional Stub- to FA-class scale. Articles like the Featured 2009 New York's 20th congressional district special election are not lists but regular articles. They are not just statistical records of election results, but are perfectly suited to be legitimate articles that outline the circumstances of the election in detail. My proposal is to change the classification of many election articles currently in "List-class" to whatever article ranking is suited like "C-class" or "Start-class." This would include all election articles that would, in an ideal form, contain a sizable amount (at least a paragraph?) of information that is not statistics or an explanatory supplement to statistics. Ultimately, there is no rational purpose for this inconsistency, and a WP:CONSENSUS is needed to resolve it. Wikinights (talk) 03:18, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with changing all these to normal articles with normal ratings - list-class makes no sense here. Maybe stub class for the ones with only a sentence and statistics - start and C for the rest. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 05:34, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

2020 US referendums

Hey all - I've made a page for coordinating work on all the state-wide referendums that have happened in 2020 in the US. Wikipedia:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/2020 US referendums. This currently just lists all the articles that should exist. I'm going to be adding resources there in the following days, as well as adding info on all the referendums that happened earlier in the year (this only contains the ones that happened on November 3, currently). If anyone would like to help with creating articles, please do - some examples of ones I've made that I think are decent are 2020 Oklahoma Question 802 and 2020 Michigan Proposal 2 (the first one is a pretty well-fleshed-out one, while the second one is pretty much a stub, but still better than nothing. Having separate articles for these, even stubs, really helps. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 05:39, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

@Elliot321: Can I suggest combining all the ballot measures from each state into a single article, rather than having (for example) seven separate articles on the ones in Louisiana. 2020 Liberian constitutional referendum covers eight separate questions on constitutional amendments, while articles like 2020 Swiss referendums cover multiple votes throughout the year. Number 57 15:03, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

@Number 57: I suppose this could be done, but I prefer having these split - most of them can be expanded into decent articles (with sections on support, opposition, contents, results, fundraising, aftermath (if passed), etc). Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 17:34, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

@Elliot321: If the article is expanded sufficiently, it can be split off, as has been the case for a very small number of Swiss referendums. However, while there is only the basics, there is no point in forcing readers to read multiple stub articles on ballot measures in a state when they could be presented with all the currently written information in one. Number 57 17:58, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

@Number 57: fair enough. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 18:10, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm really confused how you can say the page you made "lists all the articles that should exist" when you've put the Washington advisory votes on it: they are non-binding questions with no campaigning or consequence whatsoever. They should not exist as articles. I would also highly, highly suggest consolidating content in a general "2020 State ballot measures" article, but better yet put them in the "2020 State elections" article, e.g. 2020 Michigan elections#Ballot Measures or 2020 Alabama elections#Ballot Measures, and as Number57 said, only split off when necessary beyond basic facts rather than bulk-creating stubs. There's a reason why most of these don't have articles or if they do are very short – they're usually not that notable, and having content in a main article is certainly better than nothing but separate pages make readers just click around more and often fail WP:N. Ballotpedia is great at covering ballot measures, and we don't need to copy them. Reywas92^Talk 18:34, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

@Reywas92: I'm not strongly positioned on the Washington advisory measures - or most of the measures, really - but most of the measures do pass notability. I've previously tried to research ballot measures on Wikipedia and found the lack of coverage somewhat shocking, which is why I've tried to work on this - whether as sections of the state elections pages (which is where some of them have gone, and the pages in the list I've made as redirects - like 2020 Virginia Question 2). Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 20:27, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I clarified this on the page, listing different examples of redirects to sections. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 20:31, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Clean up List of 2020 United States presidential electors

This article List of 2020 United States presidential electors seems to have major factual/referencing errors. Can some of you take a look at it? Thanks DemonDays64 (talk) 05:04, 14 December 2020 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

Proposed merger of articles about elections in the Caribbean Netherlands and Netherlands Antilles

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.

---

I'd like to propose a thorough re-organization of articles about elections in the Caribbean Netherlands and Netherlands Antilles, with the aim of making them more consistent with other articles about elections within the Kingdom of the Netherlands:

• Split and merge 2019 Bonaire general election → 2019 Dutch island council elections / 2019 Dutch electoral college elections.
• Split and merge 2019 Saban general election → 2019 Dutch island council elections / 2019 Dutch electoral college elections.
• Merge 2019 Sint Eustatius Electoral College election → 2019 Dutch electoral college elections
• Merge 2015 Bonaire general election, 2015 Saban general election and 2015 Sint Eustatius general election → 2015 Dutch island council elections.
• Merge 2011 Bonaire general election, 2011 Saban general election and 2011 Sint Eustatius general election → 2011 Dutch island council elections.
• Merge 2007 Bonaire general election, 2007 Curaçao general election, 2007 Saban general election, 2007 Sint Eustatius general election, 2007 Sint Maarten general election → 2007 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 2003 Curaçao general election, 2003 Saban general election and 2003 Sint Maarten general election → 2003 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1999 Curaçao general election, 1999 Saban general election, 1999 Sint Eustatius general election and 1999 Sint Maarten general election → 1999 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1995 Curaçao general election, 1995 Saban general election and 1995 Sint Maarten general election → 1995 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1991 Saban general election and 1991 Sint Maarten general election → 1991 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1987 Saban general election and 1987 Sint Maarten general election → 1987 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1983 Aruban general election, 1983 Saban general election and 1983 Sint Maarten general election → 1983 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1979 Aruban general election, 1979 Saban general election and 1979 Sint Maarten general election → 1979 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1975 Aruban general election, 1975 Saban general election and 1975 Sint Maarten general election → 1975 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1971 Aruban general election and 1971 Sint Maarten general election → 1971 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1967 Aruban general election and 1967 Sint Maarten general election → 1967 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1963 Aruban general election and 1963 Sint Maarten general election → 1963 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1959 Aruban general election and 1959 Sint Maarten general election → 1959 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1955 Aruban general election and 1955 Sint Maarten general election → 1955 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.
• Merge 1951 Aruban general election and 1951 Sint Maarten general election → 1951 Netherlands Antilles island council elections.

Rationale: Island council elections (and since 2019, electoral college elections) in the Caribbean Netherlands and, formerly, the Netherlands Antilles are the equivalent of provincial/municipal elections in the European Netherlands. Citizens of Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius are citizens of the Netherlands and are therefore eligible to vote in the Dutch general election. Similarly, citizens of the Netherlands Antilles were eligible to vote in the Netherlands Antilles general election.

This means that referring to the above-mentioned subnational elections as 'general elections' is incorrect. Furthermore, subnational elections in the European Netherlands don't have separate articles for e.g. the "2018 Amsterdam municipal election" or the "2019 North Holland provincial election". Hence my proposal to merge these articles into a single article per election year and type, similar to 2019 Dutch provincial elections and 2018 Dutch municipal elections.

As an example of what this could look like, I created this draft for the 2019 island council elections. Would be great to have a discussion about this and (hopefully) reach a consensus. ― Ætoms ^[talk] 17:01, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Addition. I would also like to propose to rename the following articles, should the consensus be to merge the aforementioned articles:

• Move 2020 Sint Eustatius general election → 2020 Sint Eustatius island council election
• Move 2010 Curaçao general election → 2010 Curaçao island council election
• Move 2010 Sint Maarten general election → 2010 Sint Maarten island council election
• Move 1985 Aruban general election → 1985 Aruban island council election

― Ætoms ^[talk] 20:18, 16 November 2020 (UTC) [withdrawn 14:53, 17 November 2020 (UTC)]

Discussion

• I don't support the merger of the articles as I think they are noteworthy topics in their own right, particularly for Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, which are now classed as countries. However, I would not be opposed to them being renamed (e.g.) "XXXX Aruban Island Council election" etc. Number 57 17:14, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Number 57: The country status that Aruba (1986), Curaçao and Sint Maarten (2010) obtained does not change the fact that they were once part of the Netherlands Antilles and that they were subject to the Netherlands Antilles' election system. Having separate articles implies that the island council elections were held independently from one another, while in reality they were part of a single nation-wide election. Note that there is a difference between "Aruban election" and "election held in Aruba".

Also, the elections in Sint Eustatius and Saba are fairly small. With the number of votes cast usually below 2,000 and 1,000 votes respectively, I'd argue that these elections are not noteworthier than the municipal elections held in any of the 355 municipalities in the European Netherlands. Of course, stand-alone elections, such as the early/postponed elections held in 1985, 2010 and 2020, can (and should) remain separate articles. ― Ætoms ^[talk] 20:02, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I disagree; the island councils were elected separately from each other, much like 2019 Babergh District Council election and 2019 Ipswich Borough Council election were held separately as part of a wider election process. Also, by adding the move requests in, this is a bit of a mess now. This page isn't an appropriate venue for an RM - that should be done on the article talk pages using the WP:RM process. Can I suggest you remove them? Number 57 20:27, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Well... whether or not these articles should be renamed depends entirely on what the outcome of this discussion will be. Just putting it out here to see what others think of it. I already tried to be bold and rename the Sint Eustatius article, but funnily enough it was reverted by you arguing that I should start a "discussion about a bulk move" first. Which I just did... ― Ætoms ^[talk] 20:48, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I reverted the move of a single article because it left it out of step with the others in the series. When I suggested starting a bulk discussion, I assumed you would be familiar with the WP:RM process (which allows you to do bulk move requests); apologies if not. Number 57 20:50, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I've withdrawn the addition for now. I will submit a bulk move request once this discussion has ended. ― Ætoms ^[talk] 14:53, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

• I strongly support all of these merges. There's no need for separate articles for constituent islands, especially when they are just a results box. At that time they were not their own countries. Reywas92^Talk 19:47, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

• I fully support the merger. The pages are currently very meager and not notable on themselves. MatryoshkaNL (talk) 20:40, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

• I support the merger, because the articles are tiny. KittenKlub (talk) 20:00, 10 December 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.

Category:Rhode Island state senators very very incomplete

Hi. I noticed that Category:Rhode Island state senators only has 122 people in it. There have certainly been many many more senators than that. Clicking on some incumbent ones listed at Rhode Island Senate I have found multiple who are not in the category; only under 38 of the probably 500+ would be caught by that though. It would be great if some of you could try to find some of the rest. Thanks! DemonDays64 (talk) 09:42, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Gubernatorial election articles

Based on discussions at 1948 Illinois elections, how long should a gubernatorial election article be in order to be a separate article?73.110.217.186 (talk) 01:42, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Discussions were held on my user talk page, actually. SecretName101 (talk) 02:21, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

I linked it to article because I didn't mow if it was appropriate to link to a user's talk page. 73.110.217.186 (talk) 02:42, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

And the question is more, does it make sense to have an independent stub-article for an election when it can be equally described in a section of an existing article on main election it was a component of? SecretName101 (talk) 02:28, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

My view is that elections should be covered in the minimum number of articles possible, as this makes life easier for readers. I absolutely cringe when I see articles like 2022 Florida Chief Financial Officer election appearing. Number 57 15:05, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Germany colors

Working in the German elections I've notice two problems:

• The colors for Alternative for Germany and Christian Social Union in Bavaria are almost exactly the same which make quite difficult to differenciate them on graphics.
• Often when trying to represent the colors of CDU/CSU as a whole gray is used, this is actually a missconception. Black is the color of the CDU/CSU alliance, the color of the CDU though normally black is use the official color for the individual party is orange. Although understandingly because black has become too colloquially associated with CDU and a lot of fringe non-Bundestag political parties also use orange (Pirates, Family, Ecological, etc) is still something that might need correction on some graphics.

As for the first, I would like to suggest to search for consensus on different tones for AfD and CSU so that they can be mor easily taken apart. I would like to tag for the opinion of @JackWilfred:, @Impru20: and @Alektor89: who seem to be the more active on German politics topics. --Dereck Camacho (talk) 19:23, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the first point and would suggest, to follow german television network ARD (or the BR, it's regional dependence in Bavaria), which shows both the sister parties CDU and CSU in black (for example: https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/br-bayerntrend-sonntagsfrage-kanzlerfrage-corona-krisenmanagement,S5TbVyu). This would not cause confusion, as CDU and CSU never run against each other in any election. Alternatevely, I would give one of the parties a really dark blue and the other one a really light blue, which is easy to distinguish from one another. I disagree with the second point because of the reasons, you have mentioned yourself. Alektor89 (talk) 14:49, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

The second point is not that important, I just think it worths mentioning. However regarding CSU which indeed never run againts each other I might be wrong but that applies for federal elections isn't it Alektor89? Because in that case we still would have the problem in graphics of the Bavarian elections, and probably the European elections in which Bavaria has its own electoral districts to be represented in the European Parliament and technically the CSU and CDU are two different parties in the European Parliament as in it it doesnt apply the CDU/CSU coalition as far as I understand (they do are both members of the EPP but that's another matter).

Therefore I think using different tones is logical. Maybe in a similar way how when two or more left-wing parties use red the center-left parties are represented by lighter tones and the far left by darker tones the same logic can be applied; darker tone for the far right, lighter for the center right? --Dereck Camacho (talk) 15:35, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that's ok, I guess. But I would once again emphasize that this is only relevant with respect to Bavarian state elections and elections to the European Parliament. In german federal elections we should treat both parties as CDU/CSU (black) which is the way, the matter is treated in german media etc. ... Alektor89 (talk) 12:39, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

On the CSU/AfD confusion, I had already presented a solution of darkening the CSU colour for diagrams only shortly after the 2017 election (it's best we just darken the CSU's colour as it's darker and less important, rather than the AfD's, to remain neutral on the party's relative positioning). While the Union act as one parliamentary caucus, I think it important to make the distinction between the two parties because of how independently they act of each other. However, the all-black solution is easier to read and completely eliminates the chance of confusion. I therefore hesitantly agree with the status quo.

On the CDU's colour, I disagree with the idea of using orange. Black is a long-standing customary colour used for the CDU, and is so well-associated with the party that for many people it is for all intents and purposes official. I don't like using customary colours (the pink we use for the Portuguese Socialist Party is hideous), but if there's ever a place to use them, this is one. JackWilfred (talk) 20:25, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Ok, so does anyone opposes darkening the CSU color? --Dereck Camacho (talk) 03:23, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I guess no. Do you have a tone in mind JackWilfred?--Dereck Camacho (talk) 09:57, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Notability of state legislative special elections

I've recently stumbled upon a number of state legislative special election articles in Minnesota such as 2013 Minnesota House of Representatives District 14A special election and 2016 Minnesota Senate District 35 special election and I have questions about the notability of such elections. Unlike the special elections like 2017 Delaware's 10th state senate district special election or 2017 Washington's 45th state senate district special election these elections were not competitive, did not gain national or significant media coverage besides local coverage which is typical for any special election, changed which party controlled the chamber, or even flipped which party represented the district. A couple of elections flipped parties such as 2016 Minnesota House of Representatives District 50B special election and 2016 Minnesota House of Representatives District 50B special election but even those elections did not change which party controlled each chamber, or gain significant national media coverage. The only race that had the opportunity to change which party controlled the chamber was 2018 Minnesota Senate District 13 special election but that race wasn't competitive at all.

Looking through other states I cannot find any other examples of where state legislative special elections have their own articles besides the Delaware and Washington special elections. Only a number of states even have lists of special elections in their respective chambers. California has List of special elections to the California State Assembly and List of special elections to the California State Senate but only covers results of races from 2013/14 onwards which is random to me and Iowa has List of special elections to the Iowa State Senate but not for the Iowa House of Representatives which to me doesn't make much sense but it does list all the results from the special elections. I believe merging special election articles in Minnesota into their respective lists and listing their results would be the most logical and useful but what would be the best way to determine if such elections are notable and deserve their own articles vs merging into one list. I would nominate such articles for AfD but would like to get some feedback first and the best way to go forward with merging the articles. Thanks! JayJay^{What did I do?} 21:25, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC on infoboxes for two-round elections

The consensus on Wikipedia for two-round election has traditionally been to only include the two candidates who made it to the second round. However, recent articles, such as 2017 French presidential election and 2020-21 United States Senate special election in Georgia, display both the first and second round results in their infoboxes, and sometimes include candidates who did not make it to the second round. I believe this means a new consensus (not necessarily a change in policy) should be reached on the topic (especially given the high profile of the Georgia special senate election, which so far has not been altered to fit the old consensus).

My question is:

Should election infoboxes for two-round elections:

1. show only the two candidates who advanced to the second round, and only the number of votes recieved in the second round?
2. show only the two candidates who advanced to the second round, and the numbers of votes recieved in both rounds?
3. or show the two candidates who advanced to the second round and any other canddiates who received 5% or more in the first round, and the numbers of votes recieved in both rounds?

Glide08 (talk) 23:07, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1 I don't think the way the votes are displayed in 2017 French presidential election is helpful. Number 57 23:14, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
  • It's also worth noting that the first round results were only added to the French article in November 2020 by a user who only had around 160 edits at the time, so I don't think their inclusion there is much more than an edit that has gone unnoticed by people familiar with the standard practice. Number 57 23:23, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
    • I'd say it has gone noticed by them, since the original edit included not only first round results but also first round candidates. The candidates were removed, but the results stayed on. Glide08 (talk) 23:25, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
      • Also, this isn't specifically about 2017 French presidential election, this is about two-round single-winner elections generally - hence why this RfC is in WikiProject Elections and Referendums. Glide08 (talk) 23:58, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
        • I'm just wary about using exceptions to the rule to suggest there is a new consensus. Number 57 00:01, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Also, the London mayoral election is done via instant runoff voting, so isn't a two round election in the normal sense. I think that kind of election needs a separate discussion – can it be removed from this RfC to avoid muddying the waters? Number 57 00:01, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Done. Glide08 (talk) 00:04, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

• Option 3 or failing that top three candidates (assuming all are over 5%) - I think it is helpful to include the two ballot numbers, and at least a third candidate who was eliminated on the first ballot (which the infobox can then show). That way people know it was a two round election at first blush, and that more than two candidates ran. Doing so avoids confusion about the process. This is kind of a similar situation to instant run off elections (see for example 2020 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election or 2020 Green Party of Canada leadership election. That said, we may have been too generous in the Green party example where we have included Andrew West who ultimately only received 1.47% on the first ballot.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 23:36, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
  • The infoboxes typically have the dates for both rounds, labelled as first and second round, so I don't think the additional candidates are needed to convey that info. Personally I'm concerned about infobox bloat. Infoboxes should contain the minimum amount of info necessary to convey the key facts. I am not sure first round losing candidates are key.
  • Also I notice all your examples are party leadership elections, not presidential elections. Do we want both covered by the same rules, or should there be different approaches to different types? Number 57 00:01, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I hear you about bloat. I started this discussion concerning the 8th candidate in the 2020 GPC leadership infobox, after my comment above. That said, I don't see any reason to treat leadership campaigns differently than Senate or Presidential elections. You may be right that we don't need 8 people in an infobox but three would make clear that it was "a run-off election" (or instant-run off election). I don't think that complicates the infobox too much, and has the added benefit of not misleading people about the process (ie that there were two elections (or multiple rounds) which decided the election. I do think it is important that the infoboxes don't gloss over this fact, it can be particularly important to the story in elections like 2017 French presidential election. That election in its entirety was an election about a far-right candidate (Marine Le Pen), sneaking up the middle in the first round, and then being stomped in the second when all of the "moderate"/left vote coalesced around Macron. Leaving only two in the infobox fails to tell the story of the entire election (even in a simplified form). I wasn't involved in the editing of that article. If I had been I would have argued for the inclusion of François Fillon, Jean-Luc Mélenchon or both in the infobox. They both received roughly 20% of the vote which is pretty significant (and only a percent or two less than Le Pen) but you wouldn't know it from the infobox. In the recent Georgia election, it would be misleading not to include that Ossoff received less of the vote in the first round (but won in the run off). As there were only three candidates in that election, I would advocate for including the Libertarian in the infobox (even though they received less than 5%) so that it is clear at first glance that it was a run off election, the Libertarian was eliminated and then in the runoff Ossoff won. In the special election, it is helpful to include Doug Collins for the same reasons. The goal of the infobox is to provide a quick summary of the election (the entire election). I just don't think you can do that by only including information about the second round only.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 02:22, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Doug Collins and Deborah Jackson are already included in the Special election. Glide08 (talk) 12:25, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

• You could put the best 1st round losers in the second to next columns. Putting a third person in the first column could be confusing to the reader, not that I'd oppose that practice. Howard the Duck (talk) 13:36, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Part of the issue is how {{Infobox election}} is laid out. It would be less problematic if instead of having multiple columns and rows, it just had rows, as is the case on French and Spanish Wikipedias (although I would rather see the info on registered voters and turnout moved to the bottom and the candidates be further up). Number 57 13:54, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Short of changing the template, my suggestion seems to be the best fit, and still includes candidates in the first round somehow. Infoboxes are summaries. If they don't include the first round winners that were extensively discussed in the main article text, it's a disservice to the reader. Howard the Duck (talk) 17:16, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, but what option do you support Howard the Duck? Glide08 (talk) 16:32, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
    • I believe I have disclosed my choice in the first sentence. Howard the Duck (talk) 17:13, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
      • So you support option 3. Is it okay if I add a bold "Option 3" before your initial query? Glide08 (talk) 17:43, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
        • Please don't refactor my comments. Howard the Duck (talk) 17:46, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
          • OK. Glide08 (talk) 17:48, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
• Don't make a rule. I don't think we necessarily need a one-size-fits-all approach here. There are variations in how these sorts of elections work, there are different contexts for these elections. I don't think that 2017 French presidential election has to be done the same way as 2020 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election. That said, how would I approach individual cases? Infoboxes are meant to be, as per WP:MOS, reasonably small. Something like 2020 Green Party of Canada leadership election is abominable. I don't mind 2020 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election; leadership elections feel different to me than Presidential elections. If I had to choose, I'd go with Option 1, and I think Option 1 would definitely be best for 2017 French presidential election, as per Number 57. I would also note that, before the first round of the election is held, it is frequently appropriate to include >2 candidates, so we need to accommodate that or, as I would favour, simply not have an infobox more often. Bondegezou (talk) 14:36, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
• Don't make a rule. Let's take the example most cited here, the 2017 French presidential election. I agree with User:Number 57 that currently, under an option 2 situation, the info presented is not very helpful. However, Option 1 would be just as bad because this election was essentially a first-round battle on who would get to run against Marine Le Pen in the second round. Polling showed that the victory of this candidate in the second round was a forgone conclusion. The infobox should reflect this and show the results of the election with all viable candidates. The 5% threshold of option 3 would work well there because it would allow us to show the results of the ruling party's candidate, who got over 5% of the vote. However, in 2007 and 2012, the candidates that were not of the two major parties did not have a serious chance of winning, so a 5% cutoff here would be unhelpful. More importantly, any of these rules wouldn't be helpful for the 2002 election and the 1995 election. Here, the real upsets were the third candidate, Prime Ministers Lionel Jospin and Édouard Balladur respectively, missing the second round. The existing Option 1 rule in the articles really doesn't do a good job of correctly presenting the details of these races, which had a very competitive three-way first round. The option 3 wouldn't do either, because in both case, the infobox would be forced to include a slew of borderline insignificant candidates with little to distinguish themselves from candidates who obtained just a few hundred thousand less votes but got under 5%. Mottezen (talk) 06:52, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

naming for state senate elections?

It seems like in general, there's a mix of articles named like 2020 Ohio Senate election and like 2020 Georgia State Senate election. My opinion is that they should all be like the latter (YEAR STATE State Senate election), to avoid confusion with elections to the United States senate (I made a disambiguation page at 2020 Georgia Senate election, though in some cases, that page should redirect to whichever election occurred, if there was only a US Senate or State Senate election). Thoughts on this? This would be a somewhat-large change to page naming (since there are many pages named either way), but I think standardization is important. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 12:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

These types of election article titles are supposed to match the name of the legislature being elected, so 2020 Ohio Senate election matches Ohio Senate while 2020 Georgia State Senate election matches Georgia State Senate. Number 57 13:12, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

ah, I see. sadly, getting Ohio to rename their State Senate isn't really something I can do so... I still think this is somewhat of an issue. Most media refers to US senate elections as "STATE Senate election", not "United States Senate election in STATE", so per WP:COMMONNAME I think we should at least have disambiguation hatnotes, but ideally something more consistent. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 14:40, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I think DAB hatnotes are the way to go if you want to keep the articles as they are. Alternatively, there could be a single article that covers the elections to both houses of state legislatures (e.g. 2020 Ohio General Assembly election that also covers the 2020 Ohio House of Representatives election, another title which may also cause some confusion); The long listings of individual districts could be put into a Results of the 2020 Ohio General Assembly election article or have individual results breakdown articles for the House and Senate (this is how it's done for Australian states, for example – see 2019 New South Wales state election). Cheers, Number 57 14:48, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Some mix of those would probably be good. These articles pretty much are the long listings - usually not containing much other information, so splitting it would just lead to a stub (except for some exceptionally good articles, but sadly, these elections don't really get much substantive coverage). I'll think on it, I'm really not sure what would be a good idea (but I'm glad we're starting to get more coverage on these topics from myself and others!) Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 15:14, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Improving List of electoral systems by country

I have started a discussion at Talk:List of electoral systems by country about improving the format and quality of this list, which may interest some watchers of this page. Thanks, PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 22:52, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Unnotable 2006 and 2010 U.S. House races

So recently, I have been looking at the 2006 United States House of Representatives category and have discovered a lot of single race articles that are unimportant and should be merged and deleted. Most, if not all, of the articles were made during a terrible WikiProject back in 2006 started by John Broughton. All of the races have one thing in common: they were "close" (the winner got 55-60% or less of the vote). Not only is this standard arbitrary, it just doesn't make sense. Most of these articles are clearly dated (even by 2007 standards) and fail WP:GNG. By that viewpoint, there should be over 76 single race regular election articles for the 2020 season. Currently, there is only one where the winner won by less than 55%: North Carolina's 11th, but that was only due to an obviously high amount of news coverage. There are also a few 2010 House election races which exist for no reason either. The creator of the Pennsylvania's 2nd district election article created the page in June 2010 (months before the race even ended) and hasn't edited since 2014. The creator of the North Carolina's 7th district election article has only ever edited that article and Mike McIntyre's. And the creator of the 2010 Florida congressional district election race articles hasn't edited since 2015. None of these articles are being kept up to date and it is very clear most of them fail WP:RECENT. For this reason I believe most, if not all, of the articles and redirects in "User talk:John Broughton/Wikiproject Notable races for the House 2006/Scope of this project", "List of elections in 2006#United States", and the single race non-special elections in the 2010 United States House of Representatives category. Pages where the incumbent representative/party won re-election (even by a narrow margin, but especially by a large margin) should be put into more consideration for deletion. Having looked at the discussions (1st and 2nd), most of the arguments which claim that most are WP:GNG (and other false claims) feel in bad faith, since they actually fail WP:RECENT. The only elections in both the 2006 and 2010 categories which I believe pass WP:GNG are: 2006 Georgia's 4th and 2010 Illinois's 17th and possibly 2006 Arizona's 8th. Other than that, everything I stated earlier is what I think. I started this discussion on this WikiProject talk page since these pages concerns all of us the most and I am interested on hearing your opinions on the deletion discussions and these election articles. KingSkyLord (talk | contribs) 04:08, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I think the shorter ones can be merged/redirected to the respective state article per WP:MERGEINIT. Individual house races are typically not notable on their own, even when competitive by some standard. Sadly we don't have the manpower to maintain articles for every separate race. Reywas92^Talk 04:18, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

"Individual house races are typically not notable on their own,..." (emphasis mine). I think "typically" is the key word here. Some of English Wikipedia's best articles are created when things are in the news. Unfortunately, "if it bleeds, it leads" so "Recent deaths" is a great place to look for good articles created quickly. Back in 2018, I had my attempts at quality prose reverted from 2018 United States House of Representatives elections and 2018 United States House of Representatives elections in California, but I was able to create 2018 California's 10th congressional district election. Years after the election, I was able to create 2018 New York's 14th congressional district election by ample copypasta from the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez article. It's hard to imagine that history won't find significance in that particular election in the 14th, but it's kind of crazy that it took as long as it did for that article to get created. It would probably be a better article if it had been created when AOC was still a bartender. Moreover, other elections may become significant later. For example, 1994 Washington state's 1st congressional district election and 1994 Washington state's 4th congressional district election seem more significant today than they did at the time, not to mention at least one of the 1978 elections in Georgia. -- RobLa (talk) 02:14, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

My opinion on US house races is that individual races should nearly always be merged to a single article per state, barring exceptional circumstances (I can't think of any in 2020 that really warrant their own articles). Special elections are generally independently notable, though. So yeah, merge all of these. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 14:41, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with the premise that all (or perhaps even most) individual US House races are not individually notable. I think circumstances where more prose is (or could be) valuable when a) the incumbent faces a serious intra-party challenge b) when there is a significant third-party candidate c) when the race is rated as a toss-up or leaning toward the opponents party d) when the seat flips (especially if unexpectedly) e) is featured as part of a documentary, academic study, or other post-election coverage (even if fictionalized) f) is the first race of a president or g) contains a candidate who is widely known as a "first." --Enos733 (talk) 16:08, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

There's no reason you can't have prose in a larger article.

I do agree that in some exceptional circumstances where the race itself gains significant attention, it could be worthwhile to have an article (such as 2020's NY-22 race). But as a general rule, no, we shouldn't. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 16:34, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Russian elections template

The current situation of the Template:Russian elections is a bit of a mess, with inconsistent pages about governoral election existing in random years, while others titled Regional election also exist inconsistently, and sometimes include governoral elections in addition to regional parliaments. I believe it would be better to simply merge these articles into regional election pages, which would include both governoral and regional parliament. They're at the same level, and that's the way it's done on the more complete russian wiki, allowing for consistent linking (2021 russian page, for example). What do you think?--Aréat (talk) 19:12, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

State legislative districts

Hi, it would be great to have some people work on finishing Category:State legislative districts of the United States. Lots of states (most?) are super incomplete. Also some inconsistency, like the titles being in a few different forms (in my understanding they should all be called "States's Xth {legislative body} district"). DemonDays64 (talk) 16:59, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

On a related note: Does anybody know if the seats (Dems/Reps etc) are updated on the various state legislature articles, not to mention the federal & state political parties infoboxes? GoodDay (talk) 17:01, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay: good question. I'm not sure, and I'm not sure what the best place to compare ours with would be (Ballotpedia is very good most of the time, a good place to start). Side note, do you know anyone really good at AWB or some other tool who might be able to doing the renaming task? I have access but do not know how to use it for this sort of stuff, and there are very large numbers of pages needing renaming (over 400 just for Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin...). Thanks, DemonDays64 (talk) 05:15, 10 February 2021 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

I've no clue. Don't even know what AWB is. GoodDay (talk) 16:17, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

WP:AutoWikiBrowser (or AWB) – it's tool to basically "automate" certain repetitive-type edits. To use it, I'm pretty sure you still need to get permissions for it from WP:PERM. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:04, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

IP editor making rounding errors

Sorry for dropping this here, but this is outside of my normal editing area and I need someone to pick it up and run with it. It looks like this IP user has been making rounding errors on a lot of UK local election results. The main error seems to be the percentage change in the vote for a party since the previous election. They've taken the already rounded percentage figures for an election and the previous election to produce a figure that on the face of it looks right, but actually isn't. e.g 1.5 - 3.4 = -1.9 but the correct figure using the turnout of each election is actually -1.843, which is rounded to -1.8 As I said, sorry for dropping this here, but I'm sure you must have come across similar activity before and will know the best way to fix it. - X201 (talk) 10:21, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

@X201: could you try explaining this on their talk page please? DemonDays64 (talk) 01:38, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Coverage of Alaska House of Representatives coalition

Hi. I was reading a bit about the Democratic/Independent/Republican coalition that has been in the Alaska House for a few years and I found the coverage on here was really lacking. Stuff like this is not very easy to find info on and I don't know a ton about it -- could someone who pays more attention to this stuff please expand the explanations of it on articles like

• 2016 Alaska House of Representatives election
• 2018 Alaska House of Representatives election
• 2020 Alaska House of Representatives election (the formation is still ongoing)
• 30th Alaska State Legislature
• 31st Alaska State Legislature
• 32nd Alaska State Legislature?

Thanks (I would help more if I knew more and could find more sources) DemonDays64 (talk) 01:42, 17 February 2021 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

Plurals in titles of U.S. election articles

Is there a reason the plural ("elections" not "election") is used for U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate election articles (2006 United States Senate elections, 2010 United States House of Representatives elections in Virginia, etc.) but the singular form ("election" not "elections") is used in the titles of articles about U.S. state legislative elections (e.g. 2014 Florida House of Representatives election, 2012 Michigan House of Representatives election, etc.)? Was there a discussion where this was decided? Is there a reason for the inconsistency that I'm missing? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:44, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

It should be plural for all of them. GoodDay (talk) 18:45, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

+1 for plural for all, as these are separate elections per district. It would only be singular if the entire election is done under one "at-large" district (the U.S. does not do it this way), or if there's only one position disputed (like the U.S. Senate elections per state and special elections). Howard the Duck (talk) 18:51, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

The only pages election should be used is when there is only one individual elected, like a presidential one, or a page about a specific senate race in a given state.--Aréat (talk) 19:09, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

It should probably remain plural in all instances. Even in the cases Aréat mentioned where a single office is being contested, the article is usually covering all the elections in the cycle (i.e., primary elections, general election, and a run-off, if needed). Carter (talk) 19:36, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I strongly disagree. A two round election is still one election. When it took six round to elect the estonia president in 2016, it was still one, not six elections. An election is plural when there is several seats or office to fill. If there's only one, there can be primaries between parties, there can be several round, but in the end, there is only one person elected.--Aréat (talk) 19:47, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I guess I can see that point when you're talking about a general and runoff, but U.S. primaries are a whole different beast often with different voter pools, focus on different issues, and different campaign strategies. If the article is focused on the office being elected, maybe that's all one thing, but if it's focused on the election process and each step, then it's clearly multiple elections. It's not about one person ultimately being elected, it's about the multiple times people go to the polls and winnow the field.Carter (talk) 20:15, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I understand, but the winner of a primary isn't elected per se, as he didn't win any office or seat. He's just won the right to be the candidate for the actual election.--Aréat (talk) 20:37, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I'm sorry, I completely mixed up the conventions of the french and english wiki. Forget what I said above.--Aréat (talk) 22:31, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

• They should all be singular as per WP:NC-GAL. I think the arguments above about it being separate elections in each district are very weak; the vast majority of parliamentary elections are carried out in districts of some form, yet articles on almost all other countries' legislative elections use the singular (I believe the Philippines may be the only other country that has articles using the plural?). The reason the articles aren't compliant is probably just no-one has had the inclination to start an RM because it would involve tagging hundreds of articles and there is probably a reasonable chance of it failing as people don't like change. Number 57 21:05, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

So under WP:NC-ELECT, 2006 United States Senate elections, 2010 United States House of Representatives elections in Virginia should be correct with plural because they "[cover] multiple elections to bodies or positions of the same type," but Aréat's point would be the correct one for 2020 United States presidential election or 2020 United States Senate election in Alabama. Carter (talk) 21:14, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

No – the relevant line for the House and Senate election articles is the fifth bullet point ("For elections to particular bodies or offices, default to the form "Date [adjectival form of country name] Body/Office election", as in: 2007 Scottish Parliament election"). The line on multiple positions/bodies is a reference to articles covering a set of elections to positions like governors or mayors or separate bodies like regional councils. Number 57 20:32, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Generally, if it's "general/presidential/legislative/parliamentary/federal election", it's always singular. So apparently, US states legislatures are like UK devolved legislatures which is at <Name of chamber> election", which is always singular. In other countries, <Name of chamber> election is singular: see 2019 Japanese House of Councillors election (which is a multi-district election). Both US Congress chambers and Philippine House of Representatives are plural (multi-district elections), while the Philippine Senate is singular (there is only one "election" in one "district" since 1941). I've seen usages of "general/legislative/parliamentary/federal elections", even on WP:RS ("presidential election" always singular), and when I asked about this at WP:REFDESK they said to defer to WP:RS on what to use, but article titles are always singular.
• Local elections are different. It's always Foo local/gubernatorial/municipal/regional elections; always pluralized. If it's an election to a local assembly, it's singular.
• Also, US presidential elections are in actuality 51 separate elections but WP:RS treat it as singular.
• People will accept change if it makes sense. Previously, election titles are at "Fooian general election, <year>". A massive WP:RM changed that to "<year> Fooian general election". Howard the Duck (talk) 21:20, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
  • And, FTR, I despise that latter change: "UK General election, 2019" makes much more sense as a title than "2019 UK General election" – the election part is what should "define the title" and go first, not the year!! The latter way is also much worse for when you don't know the year and are trying to search for an election in the search box! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 22:29, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
    • I'd disagree on your first point, but I'd strong agree on your last one. It's much harder to find election articles now via search. I've always found "<Some phrase here>, <another phrase here>" nomenclature clunky; we wouldn't place "Joe Biden" at "Biden, Joe". Would've went with "<Another phrase here> <Some phrase here>" just as what we do with sporting seasons, but I guess a decision has been made on that and we should touch that with a 10-foot pole until at least 10 years from now. Howard the Duck (talk) 13:42, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
      • The search still works where there are redirects in place (which there are for every election before the convention changed. If having them for elections since then is seen as desirable for searching purposes, someone could make a WP:BOTREQUEST to have a bot automatically create redirects from the old title format (one of AnomieBOT's tasks is to create redirects to titles that include charachters like –). All it would need is a bit of logic like 'if title starts with year and ends in election, create redirect with year moved to end'. Number 57 15:30, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - does this really matter such a great deal? As far as I can te both usages are acceptable both are widely used. attempting to enforce consistency on such a minute detail seems to me excessive Firejuggler86 (talk) 12:20, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Help with a personal project

Hello. I know this seems like a very unusual request. I've been working on a personal "alt-history" election article in my sandbox as a personal project. I know it seems weird, but I would like a little bit of help getting it up to snuff. I have never taken on anything similar to this before, so it would be nice to get people who have experience with this type of thing. User:BigCheese76/sandbox2.

I would greatly appreciate help turning this into something that looks like an actual Wikipedia article, and you guys are really good with this type of thing. If you guys would like to contribute, check it out here

Edit: This is clearly a fictional article, in a fictional setting. This is part of a personal project I could use help with.

BigCheese76 (talk) 13:34, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Bolding of candidates pre-runoff

In races where no candidate gets over 50% of the vote and the race heads to a runoff, for the pre-runoff results, should the candidate with the highest percentage, both candidates, or neither have their total votes and % bolded? Since there are good arguments for both sides in my opinion, this is a style argument.

Offering my perspective: neither should be bolded, because it should only be used for the second round winner. Even if you come first place, if you advance to a runoff, it shouldn’t be bolded.

I could also understand the argument where the top 2 candidates who advance to the runoff should be bolded.

However, I disagree completely with the idea that the top scorer should be bolded before runoff.

For reference, use the Georgia Senate articles.

What do you think? For the first round:

• top 2 bolded
• neither bolded
• top finisher bolded

Election Tron (talk) 13:17, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• Bold Top 2: The top two have "won" admittance to the runoff and it makes sense to highlight them from the also-rans, but I can understand the logic of bold no-one. Top-finisher alone bolded is misleading and should not be done. Carter (talk) 13:22, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Neither bolded Personally I am not a fan of any bolding in results tables except for the total row. Number 57 13:35, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• It seems safe to say that this third option is misleading in an article and should not be used. Perhaps the candidates besides #1 and #2 in the first round should be in italics? Then, the top two can be distinguished but not using bold until the final round winner. Election Tron (talk) 14:00, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • One thing that doesn't help in this particular example is that there are separate results tables for the first and second round. Across most of Wikipedia, two-round elections are shown in a single table like this or this, which means you don't really need bolding to see who the candidates progressing/winning are. Number 57 14:13, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Yes, I definitely agree with that, however my original discussion was for the election boxes at the top of pages like this and this that have been causing much controversy. Election Tron (talk) 15:55, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
      • Are you talking about the infobox rather than a results table? Number 57 16:13, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

        Yes, we are talking about infoboxes. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 07:02, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

        Personally, I think the first round's finishers should be marked with an underline in the first round section of the infobox, while the second-round winner be marked with bold. Glide08 (talk) 22:48, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

• Neither bolded We shouldn't be throwing bolding into tables without a legend explaining what we're doing for the reader, and people rarely put those legends in. In a situation like this where the "winner" or "winners" is complicated, it's more trouble than it's worth. (If we must have bolding, it should be for the top 2.) Bondegezou (talk) 16:34, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Bold top 2 per Tcr25. Definitely not option 3, though, as that implies the top vote getter had some sort of victory over the other candidate. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 06:59, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
• Bold top 2 per Tcr25, if like in the 2020–21 United States Senate election in Georgia the election results are separate. Good visual cue that that were in fact multiple winners of the first round, indicating who had earned a spot in the second round. Doesn't need to be a hard rule: when the two boxes are together like in 2020 United States House of Representatives elections in California, bold isn't needed. Obviously not only one. Reywas92^Talk 07:36, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
• Neither bolded Bolding should be used to indicate the winner, so it should only be used in the runoff. Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 21:59, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

• Okay, so I’m gathering from this discussion that either both or none should be bolded, depending on the situation. Sounds good. Election Tron (talk) 13:15, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
• Neither in the first round; just put the first round losers in the second to subsequent columns in the infobox. I'd also be opposed to separate infoboxes per round. Howard the Duck (talk) 14:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, I would definitely not do separate info-boxes, which thankfully the Georgia articles have one box. Election Tron (talk) 20:46, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Consistency in US state legislature election articles

Hi. I've not written any for a while but I was looking at the state legislature election pages we have and I noticed there are pretty different formats they are in. It would be a very large task to get them all to the same one but I think it would be good if we decide on how the best ones should look then work to make new ones fit whatever that is, and gradually work through existing ones. This would be much better for readers and make it a easier to make these.

For a few types to compare see 2020 Indiana House of Representatives election, 2020 Idaho House of Representatives election, and 2020 Connecticut State Senate election.

Thoughts on how the ideal state legislature election article should be? DemonDays64 (talk) 08:19, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure I really like any of these – they seem more "table than prose" – but of these three, 2020 Connecticut State Senate election is the "best" (i.e. the most informative, with good use of maps and summary data tables), and is the "format" I've seen most often in U.S. state legislature articles. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:18, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I like the look of that too. We shouldn't just be a data dump. Having the map (and I prefer the format currently in use in that article to other formats, as it shows flips) is certainly an important part, too. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 19:36, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@Elliot321: yeah getting more maps on here would be great. I've tried to use QGIS but I'm not very competent -- someone starting to work on making maps for more state legislatures would be greatly appreciated, and the data is available. DemonDays64 (talk) 22:42, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

@DemonDays64: I've made some SVG maps for various states (currently GA, CO, and NV senate) - I might write up a guide at some point. If you have any requests please lmk! Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 22:45, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, 2020 Colorado House of Representatives election is the best one just for the table with State wise results, registered voters and turnout which is sourced. Many, if not most pages of US state election have infobox full of such information, without any source. As a summary glimpse of the page's content, an ingobox should never have content which isn't there and sourced in the sections in the first place.--Aréat (talk) 23:17, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

@Aréat: I don't think anyone disagrees with this. Though, we are allowed to do simple math. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 00:30, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Symbol for "no change"

In the election results tables, when the vote share or number of seats of a party doesn't change (and when the {{nochange}} template isn't used, for example here), how should it be indicated? Some examples:

• 0 (just the number 0)
• ±0 (plus-or-minus 0)
• = (equal sign)
• Something else

Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 22:07, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

• 0 for me; the ± is unnecessary (what else could 0 mean?) and = looks like a coding error. Number 57 22:13, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
• "0" or "–" is usually how it's indicated. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 22:21, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
• 0 it is. If you guys like cute icons, you can use but I think we're deviating from that, and and are instead using + and −. "±0" doesn't even make sense, at least mathematically. I'd discourage – as it looks a lot like −. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:20, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Rounding of US election results.

There's been a habit in page about US election to round the two decimals percentages to one decimal. It think it should stop, as nearly all sources give them with two decimals, as is done in non US election pages. If one feel so, rounding it up mentally is an easy task. On the other hand, it's not possible to unround it without knowing the number.--Aréat (talk) 20:15, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

There is no reason to need two decimals; except in the closest of races, that's just overprecision and I'm not sure why you'd need to "unround". This is a dumb thing to edit war over in either direction. Reywas92^Talk 20:38, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

With that logic, there's no reason to have one decimal, and it's overprecision to not just have natural number... I'm not edit warring, please remain civil. I've been following many election pages of many countries over the years, sources nearly always use two decimals, and so do we on the pages here. It's a common format.--Aréat (talk) 21:47, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

True! Most of the time rounding to a whole number is adequate too! Again, unless the margin is quite close, which for the page that inspired this it was not, I can't think of a plausible reason you'd really need to know the result was 55.56–43.12 rather than 56–43 (not to mention the infobox that was edited just duplicates the election box below). I know you're not edit warring, and I am being civil, but this is incredibly pointless. Sure it may be a common format, but this would be ridiculous to codify or enforce. Reywas92^Talk 22:12, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Why not just follow whatever the reference says? If the reference being used is rounded to the nearest hundredths, use that; if it's to the nearest whole number, use that. (Now if the reference doesn't show you the percentages I dunno what to follow LOL.) Howard the Duck (talk) 22:43, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Length of House election articles

There was a discussion at Talk:2016 United States House of Representatives elections that decided on removing the detailed results on that page. However, Talk:2020 United States House of Representatives elections/Archive 1 has a RFC that decided on keeping such results on that page. Personally, I think all the pages should be in a consistent format, so which should be used?67.173.23.66 (talk) 22:20, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Consistency is desirable but not mandatory. The reduced results on the 2016 article is certainly needed, as otherwise it would be far too large of an article. It is quite unusual for a legislative election article to contain every result of the election in the article. It would be much better if the other articles in this series conformed to the 2016 format. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:46, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Probably a sensible approach. For results, it would probably make sense for an article like that to link to an article on all of the results in a state (e.g. 2016 United States House of Representatives elections in California, or something), rather than reproducing all 435 House elections on a single page. The latter approach seems like overkill – something like 2016 United States House of Representatives elections should be more of an overview. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 22:51, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Should this be applied to other articles?2601:241:300:B610:98FA:33BE:AECE:BBA (talk) 23:32, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I think that's what this discussion is about. But I would say "yes". 03:34, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

So what should be done?2601:241:300:B610:DCD4:AFA1:AE58:8183 (talk) 23:20, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Strong oppose What was done to the 2015 article is unfortunate. I hadn't noticed that yet, but I often use these articles as a useful reference and I do not wish to always have to use the state-specific pages. Much of the length is formatting and citations that can be consolidated. Reywas92^Talk 04:07, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

You can bring up your concerns at Talk:2016 United States House of Representatives elections.2601:241:300:B610:41FC:5522:8D3E:D43A (talk) 05:40, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

It seems instructive to look at the 2016 articles for California and Wyoming. Both of these articles should be well-summarized (with well-written prose) in the 2016 United States House of Representatives elections article. Are they? Are the infoboxes in all of those articles helpful? -- RobLa (talk) 00:21, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Opinion polling for the next Slovak parliamentary election

Is there any policy or guideline on whether a party's polling percentage should be represented by a continuous curve or a split one when there is a significant split/merger/etc.? (I'm specifically asking about Talk:Opinion polling for the next Slovak parliamentary election#Should the line for Smer-SD be split?, but I didn't get any answers on that page.) If it is preferable to split the curve, does anyone know how to format this in the graph? Thanks, Ezhao02 (talk) 17:03, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I think it should depend on the size of the split party. If it's minor, the line should stay continuous; if the newly created party is big enough (for example, HLAS-SD) it should be shown with the line splitting as well. Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 17:10, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

In this case, I think Hlas-SD is definitely big enough, since it's now leading in the polls with Smer-SD slumping. Do you know how one would implement a split line technically? Thanks, Ezhao02 (talk) 04:35, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

The graph should have 2 distinct lines for Smer-SD, one before the merger and one after. Maybe a single of those could be labeled, if they have the same color. Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 17:08, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! Can you check the page to make sure I did it correctly? Ezhao02 (talk) 17:34, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

1954 Argentine legislative election name

In the 1954 Argentine election it was elected the Congress and Vice President. Should it be renamed "1954 Argentine general election"? --Yilku1 (talk) 21:44, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Sounds sensible. Number 57 23:23, 10 March 2021 (UTC)