Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/Archive 22

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Copyright of opinion polls

Is it legal to copy the results of opinion polls conducted by private companies (published on their copyrighted sites or on the copyrighted site of the commissioner), and then to paste all these copyrighted data into the table of the Wikipedia entry? All regular? Just an example: in the table of Opinion polling for the 2022 Italian general election I see the results of the 8-11 August opinion poll made by "Tecnè srl" (whose site says "Copyright @ 2022 Tecnè Italia. All rights reserved") on behalf of the commissioner "RTI spa" - Mediaset (whose site used as the source of the poll expressly states: "Copyright © 1999-2022 RTI S.p.A. - All rights reserved"). How "copyrighted data" can be compatible with the free licence used by wikipedia? Holapaco77 (talk) 11:22, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@Holapaco77: facts cannot be copyrighted in the United States (see Database right § United States). Opinion polls are generally not considered creative works. Elli (talk | contribs) 07:41, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2022 Chuukese independence referendum#Requested move 20 August 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2022 Chuukese independence referendum#Requested move 20 August 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 03:01, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Set up of the pages about Italian regional elections

Hi everyone, there is an ongoing discussion (here) on how the pages about the Italian regional elections should be set up. Anyone interested in the matter is welcome. Scia Della Cometa (talk) 14:53, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Political parties in nonpartisan elections

There have been some reverts for 2022 Los Angeles mayoral election with some users saying to add political parties in it even though elections in Los Angeles are nonpartisan. Unregistered User:2603:8001:2902:64F4:103D:EE4E:1D:193E saying in their edits "even though California elections are non-partisan from the governor's race to mayoral race political parties can be added as the state write political parties" (they wrote this for the previous two LA mayoral elections as well). I'm wondering if there is any consensus about the addition of political parties in these types of races. reppop^talk 03:01, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Image galleries for non-Presidential primary candidates

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is clear consensus against using image galleries in non-Presidential American politics articles. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:35, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

---

Over the last year, users have begun adding image galleries to the primary section of non-Presidential United States election articles. These galleries feature a note that "The images in this gallery are in the public domain or are otherwise free to use. This gallery should not be construed as a list of major or noteworthy candidates. If a candidate is not included in this gallery, it is only because there are no high-quality, copyright-free photographs of them available on the Internet." These galleries have proven contentious and led to multiple prior discussions, none of which has yielded a consensus for or against.

Currently, there is no project-wide consensus on the use of these galleries or guidance on how they should be made. This RfC will be on two topics.

1. Should these galleries be used in American politics articles?
2. How should these sections be formatted if they are used?

While discussion on 1) is underway, users can discuss the second plank in a separate section. If consensus is achieved for usage on 1), the ideas in 2) will be voted upon as well. Toa Nidhiki05 00:19, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Pinging the previous discussion participants: twotwofourtysix, GoodDay, CX Zoom, BottleOfChocolateMilk, Tartan357, Elli, Reywas92, Snow Rise, Gazamp, Curbon7, Number 57, 67.173.23.66, TulsaPoliticsFan Toa Nidhiki05 00:19, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Should candidate image galleries be used in non-PresidentialAmerican politics articles?

• Option 1) No, candidate image galleries cannot be used in non-Presidential American politics articles.
• Option 2) Yes, candidate image galleries can be used in non-Presidential American politics articles.

Toa Nidhiki05 00:19, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Survey

• Option 1 These image galleries don't really add anything other than clutter to most articles, and add little value in general. There are potential accessibility concerns, the images added tend to be of exceedingly poor quality. Additionally, including images for some candidates but not others could create the illusion that some candidates are more important than others prior to an election. Other articles, like 2022 United States Senate election in North Carolina, have taken a different approach of including individual images for noteworthy primary participants; this seems like a valid compromise. Toa Nidhiki05 00:19, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 - Only the images of the nominees in the top infobox, should be used. GoodDay (talk) 00:21, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 generally, providing images of people relevant to an article is a good thing. The footnote makes it clear that the candidates with pictures are not more important than the ones without a picture. Additionally, I'm concerned that a consensus from this RfC in favor of option 1 would lead to widespread misguided removal of candidate images from election articles, citing this as an overarching precedent, instead of using local editorial discretion. Elli (talk | contribs) 00:31, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
• Soft Option 1- I generally support that most election pages don't need a photo gallery, and support that they should not generally be included in primary sections. Pictures can be included without relying on an image gallery (see 2022 Oklahoma gubernatorial election#Democratic primary, where a two person primary includes the second candidate in the Democratic primary section and winner in infobox without gallery). I think clarifying including pictures of major primary candidates in historical elections is usually okay in the primary section. There also might be rare cases where a photo gallery is appropriate (see 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Oklahoma#District 2, which had something like 13 candidates run and received coverage for being one of the most crowded primaries in modern state history). I especially support barring the inclusion of image galleries in Future class articles, they attract a lot of vandalism, constantly have photos uploaded and deleted for various reasons, and photo inclusion has no relation to the availability of photos of the person or their notability and is largely random. --TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 02:12, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment: WP:GALLERY says "Generally, a gallery or cluster of images should not be added so long as there is space for images to be effectively presented adjacent to text. A gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. Just as we seek to ensure that the prose of an article is clear, precise and engaging, galleries should be similarly well-crafted. Gallery images must collectively add to the reader's understanding of the subject without causing unbalance to an article or section within an article while avoiding similar or repetitive images, unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made." So first, I agree that the caption for galleries needs to be rewritten. Second, I think that for articles with small galleries (1 or two candidate) we can incorporate them into the article similar to 2022 Oklahoma gubernatorial election#Democratic primary since "a gallery or cluster of images should not be added so long as there is space for images to be effectively presented adjacent to text." Large galleries in races with multiple candidates I think are harder. I think part of the question is how do the galleries add to the article and why shouldn't they be moved to Wikimedia Commons photo galleries. --TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 00:05, 26 July 2022 (UTC) copied from other thread --TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 03:41, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

    I think it's pretty clear that one picture per candidate is appropriate, even for relatively large primaries, and there's a benefit to having that in the article rather than sending our readers to Commons. Agree that for smaller primaries a separate gallery isn't necessary. Elli (talk | contribs) 07:59, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

    I'm not sure one picture of each candidate is always de facto appropriate though. For example, 1946 Oklahoma gubernatorial election: Mickey Harrell received 7,181 votes or 1.4%, R. M. Funk received 257 votes, and Bruno Miller received 244 votes. Including photos of Harrell, Funk, and Miller seems odd. I don't think other historical events auto-include a photo of every participant, even every major participant in most events. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 14:22, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2 seems to fit within MOS:IMAGEREL. It is encyclopedic to illustrate what candidates look like. I think an argument can be made that they are on the decorative side, but I disagree. The argument that we're implying increased importance by having images of some candidates and not others makes much less sense to me. Consider that there are many BLPs that don't have images available. We don't propose removing images of people from BLPs simply because others don't have images, and we shouldn't make that a consideration here. We include what we have. Anything else is contrary to the purpose of the encyclopedia, and avoiding including images because we think it might hurt political prospects of candidates without them is skirting WP:NOTADVOCACY. The disclaimer is really a NOTADVOCACY issue. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 02:17, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

  I don't think citing WP:NOTADVOCACY is enough to overcome WP:UNDUE issues. The existence of a photo does not merits its inclusion and WP:UNDUE specifically tells us "Undue weight can be given in several ways, including but not limited to ... the use of imagery." I think both WP:GALLERY and WP:NOTGALLERY are more specific and more cautious than MOS:IMAGEREL. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 18:49, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

• Comment, I see no compelling reason not to include images where they are available and relevant to the topic. These are public figures or people willing to become public figures. Nothing stops them from providing a suitable image if they feel it may help them. Conversely, there is no need to provide images. It should not matter what the candidates look like. We do not have to use an image just because it is available. If an image is used it should be appropriate for the purpose of neutrally identifying the person in context. I also see no compelling reason to make up a special rule for these cases. They are ordinary articles, work within MoS. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 03:58, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I don't know about U.S. election law, but in the UK there are laws governing election publicity. If a newspaper is talking about an upcoming election, they need to list all of the candidates - or none of them. Also, each candidate needs to be given equal prominence - it would be unfair to permit photos of some candidates but not all. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:20, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

No. This is the relevant law. It does not apply to Wikipedia election articles: it's about broadcast media. I think newspapers are free to do what they want. Also, the law requires all candidates to be listed, but they definitely do not require all candidates to be given equal prominence. Bondegezou (talk) 09:58, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

When governments attempt to censor Wikipedia, we ignore them (with the sole exception of the U.S., where the servers are based.) You don't see us responding to Russian requests to refer to its invasion as a "special military operation", and we shouldn't respond to Ofcom requests to change our content either. The argument that anything they have to say should matter to us is concerning. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 18:12, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

To be clear, Ofcom are not requesting or demanding anything of Wikipedia. As I understand it, Redrose64 has merely misinterpreted Ofcom's demands of UK broadcasters. Bondegezou (talk) 21:09, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1 These galleries add little positive to the article and just clutter them up with a mess of whatever images people can find. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:06, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 I can't imagine readers would care about (or even notice) these galleries either way. That combined with the problems inherent in giving more attention and pagespace to candidates with photos, and the fact that the quality of photos has been declining means that I don't see the point in having these galleries any more. Gazamp (talk) 16:14, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 as there's no correlation between whether a candidate has a picture and how well they did in the primary, thus there's no clear logic in which ones have pictures.67.173.23.66 (talk) 19:33, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. If these portraits were accompanying actual prose write-ups for the candidates, that would be fine, but a simple list doesn't need a gallery, and it's impossible not to notice how the gallery skews the perception. The note that "The images in this gallery are in the public domain or are otherwise free to use. This gallery should not be construed as a list of major or noteworthy candidates" comes across as disingenuous; when the candidates who have pictures tend to be people with public profiles (sitting politicians, journalists, major activists, etc), and the candidates who don't have pictures tend to have little public profile (civil servants, businesspeople, etc), it is hard to see the gallery as anything other than "a list of major or noteworthy candidates". And when most but not all candidates appear in the gallery, it's arguably even worse, because it effectively obscures that the gallery doesn't include every candidate. — Kawnhr (talk) 05:42, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
• Comment Such galleries are already being used elsewhere, such as in 2022 French presidential election and Candidates in the 2022 Philippine presidential election, for example. Howard the Duck (talk) 12:09, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

  This was supposedly an answer to "Should candidate image galleries be used in non-Presidential/American politics articles?", and was placed on that section, but was moved to this "proper spot", but none of the responses above are supposed answers if such galleries are to be used outside U.S. politics; rather, these are answers to the questions "Should these galleries be used in American politics articles?" and "How should these sections be formatted if they are used?" Howard the Duck (talk) 12:38, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

  The section you placed it in isn't the place to ask or answer questions, it's just listing the two options we are discussing in this RfC. Toa Nidhiki05 12:40, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

  Your RFC has too many questions and is not organized as well as you want to. Nothing in my last edit refers to the original two questions asked. That was the purpose of the disclaimer. Howard the Duck (talk) 12:43, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not sure what you're confused about or trying to say. Toa Nidhiki05 12:47, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - It's been nearly a month since this RfC started, and 12 days since the last real comment. This might be at a point where the discussion needs to be closed and a consensus identified. Toa Nidhiki05 12:58, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

How should these sections be formatted if they are used?

If option #2 is adopted. May we please have the images downsized to reasonable dimensions? GoodDay (talk) 08:00, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

• Can we also set some standards as far as image quality? To quote the section above, I don't see how using an image like this is useful to anyone. Curbon7 (talk) 14:38, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
  • I'm sure an objective standard for this could be devised. Toa Nidhiki05 17:57, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Closure

Would be best to seek closure at Wikipedia:Closure requests, where an uninvolved editor would be summoned to do the task. GoodDay (talk) 21:03, 26 August 2022 (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.

When to update election ratings

I'm imagining there are two classes of thought regarding when to update election ratings like Cook Political Report, FiveThirtyEight, Sabato's Crystal Ball, etc.

1. Update the Wikipedia "As of" rating when the race's rating changes
2. Update the Wikipedia "As of" rating when the rating group updates

where basically School of Thought 1 would say that you leave the rating's "As of" until it changes ratings. It doesn't matter if the rating agency is updating other races, it only matters when the rating changes for this specific race. And School of Thought 2 would say that you change the "As of" whenever the rating agency changes a rating for any race, regardless of if they change the race's rating.

Has there already been a standard set for something like this or is this something that would be worth discussing in this project? Grenvilledodge (talk) 16:22, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

@Grenvilledodge: I don't think there's any written standard particularly for this, but I think a middle ground approach would be reasonable: when a site publishes a whole set of new ratings, then update the "as of" for all ratings (always should be updated if a map or listing of all current ratings is included), but if a site only releases a new rating for a race due to some race-specific factor there, then only updating the "as of" for that race makes sense. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:02, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

It would be silly to have to update dozens of articles with a new date for that analyst even when just a couple races were changed. Maybe rename it "last changed" or "rated on" rather than "as of". Reywas92^Talk 23:19, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Updating coloring of maps

I noticed the coloring on the maps for 2022 United States attorney general elections and 2022 United States secretary of state elections are in need of updates regarding defeated/retiring incumbents, but I have no idea how to edit Wikipedia map files. Would someone more familiar with Inkscape be willing to help? Hotpotato1234567890 (talk) 03:33, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

These maps are svg files. There is a free web-based editor called svg-edit if you want to try. Message me if you need a hand. Newystats (talk) 08:43, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2020 Sint Eustatius general election#Requested move 4 September 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2020 Sint Eustatius general election#Requested move 4 September 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:10, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Ridings in leadership election infoboxes

Raising this here, since it affects multiple pages and I can see it being contested if I were to act boldly…

Recently I've noticed that more and more Canadian leadership election articles have a "riding" field in the infobox (eg: 2022 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election; 2020 Ontario Liberal Party leadership election; 2020 Green Party of British Columbia leadership election; 2018 Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario leadership election). I think these should all be removed, for these pages and all future pages too.

For one, what riding a candidate represents does not play a role in the leadership election process. There's no requirement for a candidate to be a caucus member (indeed, many candidates aren't) and unlike a general election, it's not as if they're incumbents in a seat or with a requirement that they need to win there. So it's essentially just functioning as a biographical detail… not really what the infobox should be doing.

Second, because because there are inevitably candidates from outside caucus, editors like to add explanatory footnotes to explain where they have run and lost before, or where they live, or whatever. This really just adds clutter and unnecessary complexity to the infobox.

Third, as best I can tell, this is not standard practice; historical elections never have this field (example one, example two), and nor do I see it on other countries' leadership elections (UK Tories, UK Labour, Australian Labor, NZ Labour). So I'm not really sure why this convention has begun to develop in Canada, but I think it should be snuffed out.

Does anybody have any thoughts? — Kawnhr (talk) 23:28, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I've no objections to removing the ridings from the Party leadership elections. GoodDay (talk) 00:26, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Election boxes needed

I've added the basics, and sources, for 8 missing by-elections at Lancaster_City_Council_elections#2019–2023 (UK) - someone from this project who enjoys making election boxes might like to do so here? PamD 15:53, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

MOS issue

MOS:HEAD makes this very clear:

For technical reasons, section headings should:

• Be unique within a page, so that section links lead to the right place.

Most election articles I've dealt with have willfully violated this for many years.

I passed on participating in the RFC on image galleries because galleries were a very recent phenomenon initiated by a few bad actors. Starting an RFC was simply one editor's attempt to shove their "I don't like it" complex down everyone's throats. It shows how out of touch some of you are to play along with that while ignoring an issue like this which has been festering for at least a decade, maybe more. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 03:41, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Swiss politicians infoboxes contain a lot of redundant information at the cost of important information: proposed changes

I am planning to edit infoboxes of Swiss politicians to include these changes per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE unless there is opposition:

• Remove the “Vice president of the Federal Council”: it is less than ceremonial, only chairing the federal council (with no additional powers) if the president (already very few powers) isn't present (which is not supposed to happen), along with being the prospective president for the following year; this position does not even have a wikipedia article
• Remove the “President of the Confederation” and move it either to {{{subterm}}} or to {{{president}}} (even if this argument wasn't originally intended for it): it's a purely ceremonial office that rotates every year between members of the federal council, the fact the person is in the council is more important then the fact they preside over it at some point; it should also be removed from the shortdescs.
• Move the heads of departments to the {{{subterm}}} argument of their federal councillorship: the departments are important but fundamentally linked to the federal council: being the head of a department is by definition being a member of the council.
• Add “Member of the National Council” and “Member of the Council of States” systematically: these are more useful since they give proper information about status in the legislature—akin to “US Representative” and “US Senator”—cantonal offices should also be included when useful.

Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 13:03, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

@Khronicle I: You may have missed this. Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 13:27, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

GA reassessment of 1995 Quebec referendum

1995 Quebec referendum has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 23:19, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Use of primary sources for election results

Is there explicit guidance somewhere saying that primary sources are acceptable for citing election results? An article I just published, List of Florida ballot measures, was marked with the primary sources template by NPP and I'm not sure how to respond, although I'm tempted to just remove it. I can't imagine there's an expectation that we find secondary sourcing for individual results, right? Especially for elections going back more than ten years? Other thoughts here would be appreciated. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 19:49, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

From WP:PRIMARY: "A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." Election results, as well as summary descriptions of a ballot propositions, would certainly seem to fall under this acceptable use. What a primary source should not be used for is interpreting said election results. And Wikipedia articles should be more than simply a collection of facts. But for just reporting facts like election results, primary sources are perfectly acceptable... In this particular case, I believe a talk page discussion should be opened – in general, tags like this are best left when the tagger explains their rationale on the talk page. Otherwise it's arguably "drive-by tagging". For a simple "list" article like this one, it's maybe questionable that the tag used is appropriate. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:00, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I expect the real reason the other editor added the tag is because to appears to be WP:LISTCRUFT and doesn't use secondary sources (or existing article on the general subject) to establish the validity of creating a very lengthy list of constitutional amendments (cited to primary sources). Sionk (talk) 00:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I think you're right. I thought I had expanded the background section before I moved it to mainspace - I'll get on that! Either way, knowing that WP:PRIMARY covers results is useful for future reference. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 16:37, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Bloated infoboxes: moving maps into articles

I can't remember whether we've discussed this here before or in some other WikiProject, but there's been a recent trend to include detailed maps of voting results in election infoboxes. Such maps are lovely, but in some recent discussions, we've agreed to move these maps into Results sections. This is on the grounds of MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE (which says infoboxes should be compact and that they shouldn't contain material not in the article). The matter has now arisen at Talk:2022_Danish_general_election#Maps_in_main_article_or_infobox. I thought it would be useful to involve the WikiProject in discussion, either there or, on more general points, here. Bondegezou (talk) 13:41, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

In general I'm happy with the status quo of having maps in the infobox. Most readers of our articles want to see a map showing election results; burying that in the body does them no favors. Obviously more analytical maps (for example, swing from previous election, or voter turnout levels) should be included in the body, though. Elli (talk | contribs) 14:17, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I don't know what most readers want. It's hard to tell without a survey. I do know what the community-wide agreed consensus is, and that's WP:MOS. MOS:INFOBOX is clear about the purpose of the infobox. It's not meant to be this all-encompassing thing replacing the article. It's meant to be a short summary. I don't myself see the maps as meeting that. Bondegezou (talk) 14:31, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Given that most election articles have been written this way for... I dunno, over a decade? And this isn't something that has come up much before, it isn't fair to say that MOS trumps widespread practice. Elli (talk | contribs) 14:37, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

We may be talking at cross-purposes. There has been a recent trend to put more and more maps in the infobox: multiple maps, bigger maps. This is not practice going back decades: this is in the last few months. I'm not saying we should ban any map ever in the infobox, and decisions should be taken locally with respect to an article's particular needs, but I think many infoboxes are getting bigger and bigger, and there's been something of an explosion in terms of including multiple maps. Bondegezou (talk) 14:52, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

What "bigger maps" are you referring to? Elli (talk | contribs) 14:53, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I may be guilty of over-generalising. Different nations tend to have different traditions on their articles. However, here are some examples. This is not a map, but a graphic: 2022 Wakefield by-election or 2022 Tiverton and Honiton by-election. The bar chart is adding little, but massively expanding the infobox. Or look at Kawnhr's examples below, like 2003 California gubernatorial recall election. Here's another example of a very large infobox: 2022 Brazilian general election.

2022 Bulgarian parliamentary election has a reasonably compact infobox, which is good, but I find the picture of Donev a bit pointless as it's so small (fails MOS:DECOR) and the map is so detailed that it's unreadable unless you click on it. That sort of map needs to be in a Results section instead. Ditto 2022 Latvian parliamentary election and 2022 Swedish general election: maps are unreadable in the infobox. 2022 Danish European Union opt-out referendum has a toggle between two maps and both are too detailed to be that useful on standard display in the infobox. 2022 French legislative election has two maps, again very hard to read, and thus a very large infobox. The infobox for 2022 Philippine House of Representatives elections likewise seems overloaded with two graphics and the map is hard to read. On the flip side, I'd pick 2022 Slovenian presidential election out as a successful compact infobox with map. Bondegezou (talk) 15:17, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Re: Philippines example:

• The Philippines uses parallel voting with 80% FPTP and 20% party-list, with parties not able to compete on either "side" of the ballot (kinda like South Korea). For purposes of the infobox, the parties in the FPTP election always gets to decide who becomes speaker. No party runs in all districts, so in effect no party gets the outright majority, but majority of the members always support the winning/incumbent president.
• Now for this election, there were originally six parties in the infobox, and these "leaders" are for the most part WP:OR (campaigns are on a per district level and there's no outright speakership candidate per party). I've been asking for editing the other infobox to make optional the "leaders" column for cases such as this.
• Now, apparently there are 9(!) parties in the infobox, with the "bottom 3" parties having 3 seats or less. I dunno how that was determined but normally we include the top x parties per vote share. Again, in the Philippines, nobody cares about the vote share... or even the number of seats per party. I'd ditch the bottom three parties.
• In 2019 before this election, there were 28 FPTP parties and 51 PL parties for a total of 79 parties. If the map is hard to understand with a lot of colors, this is the cause -- and we've already assigned the local parties to one color.
• Just as with FPTP districts, some are too small to be seen in a proper map. (Another example: Canada). The current map has some insets. which does work. I suppose the seat diagram can be removed; I only placed that because the template allows me to (LOL).

Other comments:

• I'd agree on several other things crowing maps, like charts. Staying in the Philippines example, check out the monstrosity that is the 1986 Philippine presidential election election maps. The primary map is the unofficial one(!), while all other maps have at least 4 diagrams crowing it. I would've preferred to return to this version, which shows the official results. Just a plain old map. This is an election map. If there are other things other than maps, then it isn't.
• Now of course, some elections cannot be presented with maps. Now this is where other diagrams come in, but that's a discussion for another day, I guess?

Howard the Duck (talk) 14:30, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

In theory, the map in the infobox should be simple and synthetic (as the whole infobox is to the whole article). More detailed maps should be in a subsection with the rest of the results (for example in the articles for US presidential elections or British general elections). Though I agree Filipino politics are really chaotic and confusing and difficult to reduce to a simple analysis, like an infobox or a map. Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 13:11, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@Howard the Duck: the leader function is optional in both forms of election infobox. In the legislative one, you have to add "noleader = yes" to remove the leader column. Cheers, Number 57 18:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Great. I've been asking that function to be optional in the legislative election template for a long time now. Howard the Duck (talk) 23:09, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Ok now I applied it to the 2022 article and it looks better now. As this was a parallel election , I would've wanted this to be 2 infoboxes, but the legislative election infobox suggests to add all parties that won seats; in the party-list election, 56 parties won seats (LOL), but the template only goes up to 35 entries. Howard the Duck (talk) 01:08, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm with you here; I wish we wouldn't put maps in the infobox. Beyond MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE, it also has a tendency to make infoboxes excessively large. Just a while ago I tried to remove the maps from the infobox of 2003 California gubernatorial recall election on the basis of length, and move the maps into the article body themselves, but was quickly reverted. — Kawnhr (talk) 14:36, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE is really relevant to images – as was pointed out in the discussion on the Danish article, it's standard practice to put photos of people in infoboxes of biographies. Cheers, Number 57 16:56, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Maps convey information in a way that a photo of someone doesn’t. We have many examples of maps that are very detailed, yet unreadable in standard presentation when in an infobox. Bondegezou (talk) 08:11, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the second part – but this is an issue with individual maps rather than the concept of maps as a whole. For example, the map in the Latvian article could just be cut down to the actual map and remove the table and bar charts. There does seem to have been a rather annoying trend of adding these types of things (including a copy of the seats diagram) into maps recently... Number 57 14:07, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, infobox maps should ideally not have a legend or much text included. At least for US elections, we generally maintain that standard pretty well. Elli (talk | contribs) 16:09, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

We use maps in the infoboxes of Canadian federal elections. So far though, we haven't decided on which 'type' of map to use. GoodDay (talk) 01:32, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Midterms

Y’all are a little behind updating some of the midterm pages. 98.113.8.17 (talk) 21:33, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion began at Village Pump on establishing a preferred aspect ratio for election inboxes

See this discussion that I began at Village Pump (proposals) with this edit SecretName101 (talk) 17:25, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

California's 13th congressional district

The article of this title includes correct political information for the former district 13, now district 12. The people within the map have never been, and are not now, represented by those representatives. With the correct map, this article would be fine for district 12, with the note that its number changes as of 2023, as do its boundaries (slightly). The map of the district is of the new district 13, which includes parts of former districts 16 and 21 and not a bit of former district 13. I have no idea how the article on the representational history of the new district should be written, since it's drawn from two former districts (I've occasionally corrected a typo, but I've never done serious work in wikipedia). Perhaps there should be new articles for districts that have changed drastically? 23.93.103.236 (talk) 00:47, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Lines change, the district number does not. Ideally, we would have a map image associated for every decennial redistrict (the US government posts the historical shapefiles, but I do not have the technical know-how to know how to read the files). Curbon7 (talk) 02:02, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

If you wanna see the map where "the people within [it] have been, and are now" represented, you can see it right below the infobox. This is the same for every congressional district articles in California. —twotwofourtysix^{(talk || edits)} 06:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

French legislative election(s): plural or singular?

Further information: Talk:2022 French legislative election § Plural or singular?

Hérisson grognon (talk) 19:22, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Wasn't there a discussion a few years ago that these were singular? I argued "<adjective> election" (legislative, parliamentary, general, federal) were always singular while "<noun> election" (xx Parliament/Assembly/Senate, etc.) depends on how many districts there are but I got shouted down because apparently US state legislative elections are always singular, despite U.S. congressional elections always being plural. It's a mess. Howard the Duck (talk) 23:01, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Articles on elections to a single body or position should use the singular, articles on elections to multiple bodies (like local elections) should use the plural. This is in line with WP:NCGAL. Cheers, Number 57 23:21, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Just a note on WP:NCGAL: there are several high profile cases where we don't follow that. See, for example, Talk:2019 San Marino general election#Mass move request. Famously, US congressional election articles are plural. Howard the Duck (talk) 21:17, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Use of "Nonpartisan" in nonpartisan elections

Is there anywhere to point to about the use of "nonpartisan" within nonpartisan elections (such as Los Angeles elections)? An unregistered user has been removing them saying that since California elections are nonpartisan, no colors should be added (they have done so with multiple IP addresses throughout multiple months), but I've seen cities like Seattle, Cleveland, and Honolulu that are also nonpartisan and have "nonpartisan" in their infoboxes and election boxes. reppop^talk 17:59, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I've edited some of those pages before, so I'm not exactly uninvolved, but my view is that we shouldn't use the party field when everyone in the election has the same affiliation (be that in a non-partisan election, where nobody has any affiliation; or in a party leadership election, where everybody belongs to the same party) because it's redundant. However, giving the different candidates different colours seems fair game to me (as long as it's not just giving them de facto party/faction labels), because colours will get used in result maps and polling graphs, so it's reasonable to use those same colours in the infobox for consistency. — Kawnhr (talk) 19:56, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I can somewhat agree on your reasoning for excluding color for the same affiliation, but design-wise it just looks off to me to have the images and nothing except the data underneath, especially when every other election has some color beneath. reppop^talk 23:21, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

You misunderstand. My view is only that the party field should be excluded in situations where all candidates have the same affiliation. I think colours are fine and can still be used in situations even when there is no party field, because colours can have purpose and utility beyond partisan affiliation (such as for result tables and graphs). — Kawnhr (talk) 01:38, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Ah, my bad. Now that you've explained it I actually agree with you. reppop^talk 00:01, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I also agree with Kawnhr. Personally, I believe that colors should be chosen in a way that assists a reader to interpret maps and graphs, not to create a jungle of the same color and the same party name in the primary election results table. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 22:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Does this count as enough of a consensus to add colours to these infoboxes? — Kawnhr (talk) 00:13, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

I think there should be a separate template format for voter-nominated offices in California if possible. Removing the sections with party affiliation and color - would likely reduce future edits as well. An example being in 2022 San Jose mayoral election#Results for how this currently appears for municipal races. For voter nominated seats (county, mayor, sheriffs etc) party affiliation is not listed on the ballot. (more info here) Marleeashton (talk) 21:49, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, but I'd go a step further and say that, since there are no formal party nominations, the party column should be removed entirely. Is there a template that just lists candidate and votes? — Kawnhr (talk) 00:36, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

So the infobox for elections allows you to skip the party, however the election boxes don't seem to have that option - not that I've found at least.Marleeashton (talk) 01:21, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

I think so. There's Template:Election box candidate no party no change which looks like this:

Example election box

Candidate		Votes	%
John Doe		50	50.00
John Smith		50	50.00
Total votes		100	100.00

reppop^talk 21:05, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

WOW! Thanks. I’ve been trying to find something like this and have been opting to just use plain tables instead and making it manually. This template is likely what should be standard for the types of election articles we’ve been talking here IMO Marleeashton (talk) 21:08, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

This is what some of the some of the tables in some of the articles have been replaced with, and honestly, I'm actually okay with this table being used. It's just for the infobox that I don't really like. For that, I'm okay with removing the party but not the color, having nothing beneath the image is just odd for me. reppop^talk 21:31, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah the inboxes end up looking bizarre. I really don’t like the way it looks at all - I think the ugly look of it is what encourages more people to add party affiliations with or without reference. Ugh.. If the infobox template was changed to allow party to be unchecked it would solve so much Marleeashton (talk) 21:47, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Unifying the Presidential & Downballot color sets.

Right now for Wikipedia:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/USA legend colors, we have Presidential & Downballot colors for elections. I want to propose that we get rid of the Downballot colors and use Presidential colors for everything. I belive the downballot colors are harder to look at (the 50-60 % 60-70% colors look REALLY similar and make things confusing), and I also think that it would make the colors more consistent. Could we use only the Presidential colors for stuff from now on? WeaponizingArchitecture | scream at me 20:37, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. I think we should unify them going forward they look similar enough and unifying would make things easier, unless a convincing reason is provided. Elli, what is your opinion? —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 15:55, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

This is definitely something that should happen at some point (and something I've been doing a bit of work on in the background), but it should not be done hastily, and we should definitely not use the presidential colors (they are worse than the downballot colors).

My plan is to eventually create a new set of colors based off of better graphic design principles (a uniform scale that can be derived with an algorithm given a base color) and then we can undertake a large cleanup project to update all tens of thousands of maps that will need an update. Again, because this is a huge change, it will need a lot of time/effort and should not be done quickly. We should definitely not standardize to either existing color scheme, both of which are flawed. The status quo should be maintained in the meanwhile. Elli (talk | contribs) 16:07, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Article Templates

I think it would be helpful to start building a library of Article templates as seen here: Template:Article templates. They provide a skeleton for articles, which could be used for future referendums and elections and help automate the process of creating pages. Having a template would make it easier for new editors, provide suggestions for things to include, and make future articles more internally consistent. Bluealbion (talk) 00:26, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

My proposal would be more expansive than some of the templates there, I’m working on a potential template for California ballot propositions on my sandbox Bluealbion (talk) 00:28, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

A long time ago I created proposed manuals of style for election and referendum articles, which serve as example of how to set out an article and what sections are generally included, but had completely forgotten about them. The section headings are reflective of wider use. Number 57 23:03, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Updates to 2020 Postal Voting in U.S. Article

Hey there! I'm a U.S. Postal Service employee looking for help improving the Postal voting in the 2020 United States elections article. I recently proposed a redraft of the article's Postal service crisis section, which appears not to have been updated much since 2020, when it was describing ongoing events. I rewrote a handful of sentences so that they're now in past tense, cleaned up a few citation templates, and added some information on how the Postal Service eventually performed in the 2020 election. You can read my full edit request on the Postal Voting in 2020 Talk page, and the section draft is accessible on my user page.

As a USPS employee, I know that I can't edit pages agency-related directly, and that I should rely on independent editors to evaluate the merits of any suggestions I make. That's why I'm stopping by here. I would deeply appreciate it if someone from this WikiProject could review my section draft. Thanks! Jonathan with U.S. Postal Service (talk) 01:19, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Removing the 'Leader since' parameter from the election infobox

Hi all. I've proposed removing the Leader since parameter from {{Infobox election}}. I started a discussion at the talk page a while ago, and while there was no opposition, I thought it best to get wider input before proceeding. Cheers, Number 57 12:57, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Clarify, you're seeking to delete the 'leader of party since date', in the infoboxes of Parliamentary election pages? GoodDay (talk) 14:32, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes. IMO it violates MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE as the information is not generally in the article anywhere (the infobox is meant to summarise info in the article). I also regularly see changes to these dates on my watchlist, which are almost always unsourced. Number 57 14:51, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with deleting them. Makes the infoboxes less cluttered. GoodDay (talk) 15:59, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree, it should be removed. Vacant0 (talk) 14:54, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Agreed with the above. I don't find much relevant information being added with leader since parameter, and if it is important enough, it goes to article body. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 18:41, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

As there were no objections (and five editors in favour), I have made the change. Cheers, Number 57 13:42, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Second/latest round votes

You are invited to share your input at Talk:2023 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election#Second/latest round votes. Thanks! —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 20:22, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Removing the 'Leader's seat' parameter from the election infobox

Similar to the above, I would also like to propose that we remove the 'Leader's seat' parameter from the infobox. Like the 'leader since' parameter, it is almost always a MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE violation, as the details of the seats held by party leaders are rarely (if ever) detailed in the articles. And in most cases it is not an important detail (many (possibly most) countries have multi-member constituencies, which makes this parameter pointless). The only occasion on which I think a leader's constituency seat may be worth mentioning is when they lose it in the election, but I would expect this to be covered in the introduction of an article where it happens. Cheers, Number 57 15:01, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this too. Vacant0 (talk) 15:02, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

No objections. GoodDay (talk) 15:03, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Can't disagree completely, but it may make sense when leader coming from one region assists that party to make electoral gains within that region. Mostly applicable to parliamentary systems. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 15:27, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Even where that may be the case (which I don't think is very often), having the leader's seat in the infobox doesn't give reader that information – again, I think it would be something mentioned in the prose if relevant. Cheers, Number 57 15:51, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Agree with you. I don't think it matters for the vast majority of popular vote elections, and if it is really all that important, it should be mentioned in the article prose. But, since I was just working on 2023 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election where leader's seat seem appropriate for infobox, I don't know if we should deprecate it completely. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 20:26, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Why is it appropriate for the infobox of that election? As an outsider to American politics, I couldn't see any relevance to the seat held by the candidates... More importantly, the parameter is being used incorrectly – the people are not party leaders, they are candidates for office. If it were appropriate to mention their seat, it should probably be done using one of the blank fields so the heading can be changed to "Candidate's seat". Number 57 21:12, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, I actually agree that this a misplaced use of that template parameter. Sorry to waste everyone's time, imo you can go ahead. I see nothing wrong with it now. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 21:42, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Those are candidates for the US Speakership. Not party leaders in the Westminster system sense. GoodDay (talk) 21:17, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Conventions for Disaggregated Electoral Fusion?

This was something that came to mind during a dispute over the 2022 US House Elections New York, but the problems are broad enough that I wanted to ask here.

In a few states in the US, multiple parties are allowed to nominate the same candidate in a process known as electoral fusion. Note there are two varieties, known as aggregated fusion, where a candidate will simply be listed with multiple party labels (Vermont, for instance), and disaggregated fusion, where a candidate is listed multiple times on the ballot, once for each party that nominated them. My concerns only focus on the latter. The latter is prominent in New York especially, where almost every major election will have fusion nominations. This creates some inconsistencies when it comes to how the results are reported on the results pages.

In New York, the results in the detailed summary for each race are almost always reported first by each party nominating a candidate, followed by the total votes that candidate received across all parties. See the 2020 House Elections in New York for an example, where district one lists Zeldin 4 times and Goroff 3 times according to this convention. As far as I can tell, this observation of NY Fusion on Wikipedia dates back at least to a 2010 thread on this wikiproject, although its observance in individual pages varies. The 2010 elections, for instance, first reflected it in 2014, but since then it has become commonplace in the detailed summaries.

In the main summaries, it is inconsistent from article to article, and even within the same article. Take the 2020 house elections from before: In the infobox, the Democratic Party received around 62% of the vote, and a similar amount is given in the district by district table. In the Overview table however, the Democrats only have 57.6%. The republicans similarly have a discrepancy between the tables (36.3% vs 32.8%). This is entirely representative of the fact that the infobox counts votes cast for the members of the two parties, and the summary table counts votes cast on the parties' ballot lines, and those of course are two different totals. All the recent overview tables keep the ballot lines totals, but older ones still use the membership totals, which appears inconsistent with the individual race summaries. Gains and losses are reported only by the membership (which makes sense, I suppose). The district by district table always appears to count the membership, and in statewide the county-by-county box usually counts the membership as well, although not in the 2020 presidential election article.

None of this is observed to other states with disaggregated fusion, such as Connecticut. In the 2020 CT-1 race for instance, The Democratic Candidate was also nominated by the Working Families Party, and although that is reported in the original source, it is not reported in the Wikipedia election box, where all their votes are listed under the Democratic Party. I don't believe that this is meant to misrepresent the source, but it also is not reporting the straight data according to the source. I think that all of this is due to the fact that the conventions around fusion are not standardized, and thus change from state to state and race to race, and thus when people create the articles for these elections old discrepancies are exacerbated.

Now perhaps I am wrong and there is a standardized convention that I did not see, but the articles seem to inconsistent for that to be the case. If we go about establishing conventions therefore, there are a few different options. First, we could only report party of membership, but this would make certain elections harder to understand, such as the 2014 NY gubernatorial election, when both major candidates founded additional parties on the side. By not observing these fusion parties, the story of the election would not be complete, but it might be easier to understand. Secondly, we could report only the ballot lines. This would standardize the current practice in many election boxes for individual races, but it would make certain races difficult to understand, due to the fact that certain third parties have nominated candidates from both major parties in the same election. Thirdly, we could list the vote totals for all the different alliances, but this would make the overview boxes at the top way too cluttered for it to be easily understood. Fourthly, we could create two summary boxes, one only featuring ballot lines, and one only featuring members. I attempted to do a version of this with the NY bar charts in the 2018 house elections, and others have added similar charts to other years. Any alternative suggestion are also welcome.

I also want to know how this should be noted in the nationwide articles. Currently, the totals cast on fusion lines are not included in the vote totals for nationwide elections, which sort of makes sense. I imagine we have conventions for elections where different voting systems are used in different places, but if so the methodology needs to be clearly noted in the national articles, as it currently is not. What should be done here?

MCUSRAP (talk) 19:59, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

The Philippines has sort of the same thing with some candidates running under 2 or more parties (most likely a national party and a local party), with each candidate only appearing once in the ballot.

Personally, what I do at results tables is candidates with more than 2 parties are listed separately. The most infamous example is in the 1995 Philippine House of Representatives elections where some candidates ran under 3 parties.

Now for disaggregated fusion this is trickier as while you have separate vote totals, seats won cannot be easily represented, except perhaps for footnotes (like "Republicans won x seats, with y seats in fusion with z Party"). Howard the Duck (talk) 01:31, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Swiss politicians infoboxes contain a lot of redundant information at the cost of important information: proposed changes

I am planning to edit infoboxes of Swiss politicians to include these changes per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE unless there is opposition:

• Remove the “Vice president of the Federal Council”: it is less than ceremonial, only chairing the federal council (with no additional powers) if the president (already very few powers) isn't present (which is not supposed to happen), along with being the prospective president for the following year; this position does not even have a wikipedia article
• Remove the “President of the Confederation” and move it either to {{{subterm}}} or to {{{president}}} (even if this argument wasn't originally intended for it): it's a purely ceremonial office that rotates every year between members of the federal council, the fact the person is in the council is more important then the fact they preside over it at some point; it should also be removed from the shortdescs.
• Move the heads of departments to the {{{subterm}}} argument of their federal councillorship: the departments are important but fundamentally linked to the federal council: being the head of a department is by definition being a member of the council.
• Add “Member of the National Council” and “Member of the Council of States” systematically: these are more useful since they give proper information about status in the legislature—akin to “US Representative” and “US Senator”—cantonal offices should also be included when useful.

Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 13:03, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

@Therequiembellishere: About your previous rollback: “Home Affairs Minister” (Head of the Federal Department of Home Affairs) is directly linked to Federal Councillor, both mean the same thing. As is the Presidency of the Confederation (a ceremonial job that rotates, so has almost no significance), and the Vice-Presidency of the Federal Council (not “vice-presidency of switzerland”, that does not exist). No need to put four different sections in the infobox when they all fit into 1. Notice how the federal department of home affairs is still mentioned in the federal councillor section. Also, cantonal legislatures aren't “exceedingly minor local assembly”, please do at least a bit of research before commenting that. Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 14:48, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

This is now an RfC over on Template talk:Infobox officeholder#RfC: guidelines on Swiss federal councilors infoboxes. Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 17:36, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Re: Nonpartisan elections (again)

Apologies for bringing this up again, but since the IP editor is keen on removing everything relating to the word "nonpartisan" from all Calfiornia (and other nonpartisan) elections in the infoboxes and election boxes, and has not done anything to try to gain consensus on these changes, I've decided to try to get at least something. The last time had some people going for removing the "party" line but including colors in the infoboxes, but also using the election box candidate no party template, I don't really feel like anything has happened (and, as I said, the IP is still removing things).

I've compiled a list of options for both the election infoboxes and election boxes templates:

Options

For the election infoboxes: 1A: Disregard the nonpartisan system and add the political parties anyway. 1B: Have "nonpartisan" in the "party" line, which adds the grey boxes as well. 1C: Don't put anything in the "party" line but add grey as the box color. 1D: Add colors that match maps/graph colors and exclude the "party" line. 1E: Remove both party and color (as it is for most California articles as of now). For the election boxes: 2A: Use the election box candidate with party link template with "nonpartisan" as the party. 2B: Use the election box candidate no party template. 2C: Use the election box candidate with party link template with the candidate's political party as the party. 3A: Add an election hold/gain regardless of the use of the no party template or the party link template. 3B: Don't add election hold/gain.

reppop^talk 20:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I put my vote on 1C or 1D for the infoboxes and 2B for the election boxes. reppop^talk 20:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

@Reppop: Will return to this later. But if an IP is removing things without consensus, ask at WP:AIV to enact a mainspace WP:PBLOCK on it, so they can't edit anything in mainspace, but are still able to discuss on talk pages if they choose to. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 20:48, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Could we see some "before and after" links please? It's hard to appraise this without seeing the options... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:50, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Here's what the election box used to look like, here's what the infobox used to look like. Both of the had the party line and used "nonpartisan," since the elections are nonpartisan in nature. The current page has both removed. reppop^talk 20:57, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not going to lie – as someone who thinks "nonpartisan elections" are a total canard, I actually agree with removing "nonpartisan" from both the infobox and the election box.

What I think I would advocate is putting the word "nonpartisan" or "nonpartisan election" in the first sentence in the lede, but beyond that leave things as they are now: just leave "nonpartisan" or "no party" out of it.

So, I guess I'm 1E and 2B(?). As for "Hold", I could see using that if an incumbent is reelected. "Gain" does not apply here. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:18, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

For the infoboxes, my thoughts are 1E should be the default; when nobody has a party nomination, everyone is going to have a field saying "non-partisan" and a grey bar for every single candidate, which makes it unnecessary to note and just cluttering up the infobox. However, 1D — adding colour bars but without a party field — should be permitted if there are charts and graphs in the article, and using those same colours in the infobox would make for easier reader comprehension. Basically, colours should be added if it makes sense, but shouldn't be a requirement. For the election boxes, 2B for the same reasons (everyone is non-partisan, so this is redundant and ugly) and 3B since, as non-partisan elections, there can't really be gains or losses.

I would also apply these rules to intra-party elections (primary or leadership races) for essentially the same reason: when affiliation in the party is a requirement to be in that race, it's not necessary to note that each candidate is indeed a member of the party — it's self-evident. In the US, it's possible for an independent to contest a party's primary (Bernie Sanders, of course), but it's so rare that I don't think it's necessary to account for (and it'll definitely be mentioned in the prose, anyway). IMO, the only time party affiliation should be listed in primary or leadership races is if the election is actually open to members of multiple parties, like 2016 The Republicans (France) presidential primary or the joint Democratic–Libertarian–Independence primaries that happened in Alaska. — Kawnhr (talk) 23:31, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

1E as default, 1D may be used only when there are accompanying graphs/maps within infobox. 2B as the election just does not recognise a party. 3B which is obvious considering that no party is recognised at all, so there are no gains and holds. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 09:18, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

1E, 2B, 3B . Adding partisanship in an officially non-partisan election box borders on WP:OR as the candidates do not officially run as members of a political party, the political parties have no access to a ballot line, and in some states, there is no party registration. In the prose editors can add statements that a candidate was supported or endorsed by a political party or mention that a candidate is a member of a political party. --Enos733 (talk) 23:55, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Guidelines on local polling companies in city/local elections

On the 2023 Chicago mayoral election's talk page at Talk:2023 Chicago mayoral election#M3 Strategies Reliability?, there's a conversation about whether a new polling company (launched in December 2022) should be regarded as sufficiently reliable to include their polling results in the article. Has the pollster reliability question been talked through by this community and if so, can I get a pointer to where the conversation might be? Thanks much. Novellasyes (talk) 14:37, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for 39th Canadian Parliament

39th Canadian Parliament has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 14:42, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Results of the 2022 Swedish general election by constituency

The above article has been nominated for deletion by myself. Your comments are welcome here. Obi2canibe (talk) 15:49, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Don't we have per constituency (district) results articles elsewhere? WP:OSE argument, sure, but... Howard the Duck (talk) 20:00, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

@Howard the Duck: The article's title is very misleading - it doesn't just give results by constituency, it goes much further, down to precinct level. That's why it's already in excess of 500KB despite being incomplete. We already have Results of the 2022 Swedish general election and the various constituency articles which give the results down to constituency (county) and municipality levels.--Obi2canibe (talk) 17:15, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Articles such as this should be decided project-wide as these should be treated globally, with each national version looking pretty much the same as every other country's; see discussions above for an example. Howard the Duck (talk) 19:29, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Template:Argentine elections

So it looks like Country elections templates are for direct elections only. The Argentine Senate was directly elected in 1951, 1954, 1973 and ever since 2001, the rest of the time it was elected by the provincial legislatures, EXCEPT in Buenos Aires City, where it was elected by a directly elected electoral college between 1882 and 1995. How should the template be changed? Yilku1 (talk) 01:19, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The direct election rule is generally only applied to presidential elections, so it shouldn't be a problem to keep them in. Number 57 01:34, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Idea to combat unbalanced polling

Following the 2022 cycle, many news articles were written noting that polling averages had been polluted by bad polls sponsored by campaigns and polls conducted by new/non-reputable polling firms.

Wikipedia's presentation of polls should be adjusted in response to this phenomenon to prevent it from degrading the value that poll tables and graphs on Wikipedia have at providing readers with an informative snapshot of election rraces.

I have three ideas that I have implemented at 2023 Chicago mayoral election. I believe I might make formal proposals to adopt this practice across the project. But I'd like to have your input first.

Here are the measures I took:

• 1) The article had a graph of poll results. To combat the pollution/distortion of the graph by possibly bad polls, I created two separate graphs. One that only includes pollsters that are established firms of good repute (I relied on FiveThirtyEight ratings to do be the judge of this, but if anyone has an idea of a better way of determining which polls are included, feel free to suggest). The second table includes all polls.
• 2) In the table listing polls, next to the pollster, I list the FiveThirtyEight rating of that pollster (if one exists)
• 3) In the table listing polls, I also include who the poll sponsor was if the poll had one. Some polls are independent, but others are sponsored by a campaign, news agency, or some other entity. It helps readers decide how much weight they should give to a poll if they know who the sponsor is.

Input is appreciated. Your thoughts? SecretName101 (talk) 19:46, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Side note, the difference in some candidates' (especially Chuy Garcia's) trends in the two poll graphs I created should serve as illustration just how much polls from pollsters of unestablished repute can have on such graphs. SecretName101 (talk) 19:49, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Isn't that a rather complicated approach? Can we not just use WP:RS? We should just report polls that are reliable. We can determine what is reliable through the usual procedures, using country-relevant heuristics. So, in a US context, we could just pick polls which have a good FiveThirtyEight rating.

Basically, the solution to poor polls is not to cover poor polls, just as the solution to poor news reporting is not to cover poor news reporting. Bondegezou (talk) 17:51, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

If I remember correctly FiveThirtyEight's polling firm ratings were way off before the last election cycles, so they had to massively adjust their ratings after the elections. For example Trafalgar had a C/D rating and now has an A- rating. Maybe just include all polls and only discard those that are really continiously dismal (~10 year timeframe). ΙℭaℜuΣatthe☼ (talk). 01:04, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I think the important thing is that we can't decide which polls are dismal, as that's veering into WP:OR. We need to draw on some reliable source to make that judgement. Bondegezou (talk) 16:51, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Deciding which sources are reliable is an editorial judgement we are allowed to make. Determining which polls are reliable falls under that. Elli (talk | contribs) 18:31, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

While I understand the concerns regarding WP:OR, we have to make a judgement about a source, be it a pollster or a polling aggregator, in any way. The gist of my point was that FiveThirtyEight might not be that reliable in its ratings of pollsters. Plus, the original comment even talked about pollster of unestablished repute, meaning we probably can not judge their polling quality according to reality or sources. ΙℭaℜuΣatthe☼ (talk). 18:31, 24 February 2023 (UTC)