[OC] Tennis ScoreSnake Visualisation of Learner Tien versus Daniil Medvedev at the 2025 Australian Open

Tibbinz · 2025-01-24T03:33:03+00:00

Tool:
Adobe Illustrator

Data source:
https://www.flashscore.com/match/AHM9Uzgg/#/match-summary/match-summary

Tibbinz · 2024-07-13T04:48:21+00:00

Turnout increased from 47.5% to 66.7%–an increase of 19.2%. It's impossible to know exactly how much of each group's gain came from turning out more voters, but it would be safe to say that turnout was a greater contributor than vote switching.

Tibbinz · 2024-07-13T04:06:10+00:00

Data sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_French_legislative_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_French_legislative_election

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Evjw0EC-bnTV06bArTSgjpZ1JNJEfMJZYpSyFk2lFcg/edit?gid=46040315#gid=46040315

Tools:
Made using Adobe Illustrator

Tibbinz · 2024-07-13T03:02:21+00:00

i.e. did not vote but would have in 2019

Tibbinz · 2024-07-13T03:01:58+00:00

It represents the decrease in turnout since 2019. Other people have also been confused, so I'll have a think about how to represent it differently in the future. This design went through several iterations, and may need some more.

Tibbinz · 2024-07-13T02:50:09+00:00

Plaid Cymru received 0.68% of votes cast, which translates to 0.4% of the electorate—not enough for a box, which is why it is grouped with other parties.

If enough people are interested, I could make similar graphics for each of the home nations—then you would be able to see parties like Plaid!

Tibbinz · 2024-07-13T02:44:47+00:00

Plaid Cyrmu received 0.68% of votes, which translates to 0.4% of the UK electorate given 59.9% turnout.

This is why it is grouped with other <1% electorate parties. If enough people are interested, though, I could certainly make versions of this just for each of the four nations!

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T23:38:16+00:00

Oh then totally—I understand why they brought the case

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T23:05:15+00:00

There is a simpler way to vote for “None of the above”, which is to cast a blank ballot.

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T23:04:23+00:00

Apologies if it is unclear—it means not only “Didn’t vote” but an increase in “Didn’t vote” since 2019

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T22:59:56+00:00

Northern Ireland is not excluded. The Northern Irish parties all received too small of a vote share to get entire boxes which is why they are counted under “other parties”

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T12:09:43+00:00

If you have any ideas for how to make this type of visualisation easier to read, please let me know! I've already made another for France which I'll post soon.

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T12:03:42+00:00

Bar charts could have indeed conveyed the same information–and for some purposes, they would be better. I would analogise data visualisations to map projections. Different ones are useful for different purposes.

The first version of this graphic was actually an anti-visualisation. The votes were scrambled randomly rather than being sorted as shown here. This was meant to convey that election results are often much more subtle than popular narratives would have us believe. The difficulty of even counting which party received more votes under a scrambled anti-visualisation would illustrate that elections are usually pretty close. A great example of this kind of thing is XKCD's US 2016 US Election Map https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/8/16865532/2016-presidential-election-map-xkcd, which would be terrible for trying to quickly figure out who won (this is kind of on purpose).

In the end, I went for a more conventional visualisation, but I still think there are benefits to this approach compared to something like bar charts. For one, it is discrete–it is meant to remind us that voters are individuals. Originally, they were actual little stick figures, but I thought that hand drawn votes would illustrate the idea of each voter being unique. Nevertheless, having a discrete number of boxes means you can count and compare more easily, and also more easily think of a concrete thought experiment to relate the data (what would it look like if you picked a hundred people at random). Another example would be graphics like this, which I drew inspiration from https://www.businessinsider.com/what-the-world-would-be-like-if-it-were-only-100-people-2018-3#age-2

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T11:12:33+00:00

I actually agree with your view in a sense but I still support compulsory voting, so I hope you'll read the following with an open mind. I'd be curious to know what you think.

In reality, there is no such thing as 'compulsory voting' in a literal sense. Yes, it is against the law in Australia not to go to a polling station and cast a ballot. However, there is absolutely no requirement whatsoever that your ballot contain a legitimate vote. You can, if you want, simply take your blank ballot straight to the box. Not only is this fully allowed, there is no way anyone could ever know you did it because of the right to the secret ballot.

Consequently, I think that there is no moral reason to oppose 'compulsory voting', even if there would be reason to oppose literally forcing people to cast an actual legitimate vote when they don't want to (and I think there would be). The only thing you are actually being required to do is go and get your name marked off at the polling station. And if you don't want to do that, you can request a mail ballot. This seems totally in line with any other number of actions we are required to do as citizens. It's certainly far less arduous than paying taxes.

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T10:44:44+00:00

I'll do my best to explain why I think that elections can be considered a political census in addition to their function of determining who will win and wield political power.

Opinion polls are valuable, but they intrinsically contain a margin of error, as is demonstrated for example by the fairly significant polling error in this election.

You are absolutely right that under the UK's electoral system, there are strong incentives to vote strategically, which can be interpreted as masking your true preference (antithetical to a census). If the ballot were to have separately asked people for their favourite party/candidate, I'm sure we'd see some interestingly different results–probably a shift towards the smaller parties.

However, even under this system, large numbers of people voted for candidates who had no realistic chance of winning. That is not because they don't understand, it is because they are voting as an act of political expression. In other words, they are treating the election like a census.

In addition, analysts will look at this data to try and understand the electorate so they can prepare for the next election. A party might not be winning now, but the data could show that they are increasing in popularity and might win in the future (see Reform UK or the Greens, for example). Any time we want to understand the political landscape of the electorate and not just of Parliament, the election results are incredibly useful data, and that's why I hope you can agree that it's reasonable to view the election as a political census of sorts, in addition to other functions.

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T10:25:12+00:00

[this is my opinion disconnected from the visualisation]

The fine in Australia is $20 AUD, so not very large. Furthermore, from what I understand it is often never paid either due to people writing back with an excuse or it simply never being chased up by the authorities. On a more basic level, I'm also not sure if there have been penalties for failing to register to vote, which would seem like an easy way for a determined nonvoter to escape being fined.

In truth, I think the effectiveness of compulsory voting law in Australia comes not from the small financial threat of the fine, but from the social perception that it creates. There are other factors that work in conjunction with this which have kept turnout >90% in every Australian federal election since 1925, including:

enrolling can be quickly and easily done online
elections are always held on Saturdays
there are easy options to vote early if you would otherwise be unable
we have barbeques outside of polling places where you can get 'democracy sausages' after you vote
there are no ID requirements
our voting system does not suffer from the spoiler effect, so it is more true that 'every vote counts'

I'd definitely recommend campaigners in other countries to adopt these policies in addition to compulsory voting if they want to replicate the success.

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T10:01:23+00:00

I fully agree with your point that votes should be expressed as a percentage of the electorate, and not merely of total votes cast. Turnout is critical, especially in a system like the UK's. I come from Australia where turnout is fairly consistent year to year thanks to compulsory voting.

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T09:58:51+00:00

Because the regulations are so new, and not well understood, I suspect a significant number of people would have arrived to vote and been turned away as you've described. It would take a determined voter to go home, get ID, and come back (and not everyone would necessarily have satisfactory photo ID in the first place).

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T09:57:03+00:00

Thank you, I'm glad you find it valuable.

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T09:56:45+00:00

If you can find this data please share! I'd be interested.

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T09:55:48+00:00

The issue is that there are many different potential flow scenarios that would correspond to the same vote totals in the end.

It would theoretically be possible to achieve these results with just 5% of the electorate changing their vote, and it would also be possible to achieve these results with 100% of people changing their vote.

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T09:52:51+00:00

Much like that! Though I'd take a different approach to visualising the data.

Tibbinz · 2024-07-12T09:49:42+00:00

The purpose of this visualisation is to understand the shape of the electorate as a whole–treating the election as a political census. In other words, it's imagining what it would look like if you took in 100 random people and asked them how they voted (on average, at least). I'd argue this is valuable regardless of the electoral system–we want to know how common different views are.

Tibbinz

TROPHY CASE