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 Philly's Election Results
Searchable and Mappable through Kaleidocade: Over 4 Million Records
By
Tamara Manik-Perlman
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"...KIF
would make it simple for elections commissions to share data with the
public [and] ... could accommodate data for any locality, from any time
period."
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Over the past few years, Avencia has been involved with numerous elections-related
projects, ranging from election-day
incident reporting to consulting for candidates at every
level of government. During the course of this work, we've occasionally
needed to incorporate voter registration information or historical election
results into our analysis. The public records request process can be arduous
and cumbersome. And, all too often, even when a request is granted, we've found
ourselves photocopying primary source records or holding a 100-page printout
of the information we were seeking. Needless to say, we've been surprised
that information so vital to the functioning of our democracy is rarely
provided in a form that is easy for average citizens to access.
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Map of the percent of the vote won by Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential
general election, by precinct |
Recently, as we began to develop a sample application to demonstrate
the ways the Kaleidocade
Indicators Framework (KIF) can be used to visualize
and interpret local datasets, we realized that we had the opportunity
to illustrate how historical elections data can be made available to the
public in a user-friendly web interface. To this end, we assembled the
results of elections held in Philadelphia for all state and national offices
from 1992 to 2008, along with the results of the 2007 elections for city
offices -- all told, more than 4 million records.
We're excited to announce that the election results that we acquired are
now available in the online KIF
Local Sample at both the precinct and the ward levels. Users can generate
a simple report based on an address or can assemble a fine-tuned collection
of indicators by selecting particular candidates and geographies. Once
an indicator collection is complete, KIF provides many options for interpreting
the data. Visualizing election results on a map allows users to detect
spatial patterns in candidate performance. Users can customize the data
display by changing the class break schemes or color ramps, and by overlaying
selected features and boundaries. The data can also be examined in a table
(including trendlines of candidate performance over time), viewed as statistical
summaries like distribution histograms, or compared through ranked lists
of results.
Increasingly, from the federal to the local level, transparency and open
government are becoming mandates. Our local sample serves as a prime example
of how KIF would make it simple for elections commissions to share data
with the public. Offering historical election data through a web application
also has the advantage of making public records requests a self-serve
process that can reduce the burden on elections commissions' personnel.
And while historical data is important, a tool like KIF can also be adapted
to near real-time election results reporting. Rather than releasing text
summaries of election results after the fact, city elections officials
could enter precinct results into KIF as they are reported, making the
web interface a valuable breaking-news and public information tool.
In the meantime, the KIF team plans to continue adding Philadelphia election
results to the local sample, including the Philadelphia mayoral and city
council races from 2003 and 2005. Check
out this powerful local resource and spread the word! If you're interested
in politics and open government, you might also want to take a look at
Cicero
Live (described below) and the Elections
and Advocacy sample application of DecisionTree,
Avencia's web-based geographic decision-making tools, with which you can
simulate a canvassing or GOTV campaign.
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New CiceroLive: Faster
Map Generation, New Legislative Data and Redistricting Galore
By
Abby Fretz
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"We've
been working hard to make [Cicero] better and faster and bigger -- a super-sized
government data tool, if you will."
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| Example
of Cicero API generated district map display |
All across the blogosphere and tweetscape, people have been crying out for
transparency, open government, and easy access to legislative data. The
Obama Administration has pledged to create a more transparent and connected
democracy. A major part of this initiative involves making government data
and research available on the soon-to-be-launched
website Data.gov. Legislators and government officials have been preparing
for this change by soliciting advice from the tech citizenry on the best
(and coolest) ways to distribute bulk data to the public.
Avencia is listening.
And tweeting
... and blogging.
We're committed to participating in conversations about open government,
and we think we can play a role in helping people make sense of millions
of records of government data about to inundate them.
Cicero
is our district matching and elected official lookup web API. We've been
working hard to make it better and faster, and bigger -- a supersized
government data tool, if you will. Our most recent upgrades to the web
service and database include faster map generation (as demonstrated in
our newly released, free CiceroLive
site), newly redistricted legislative boundaries, the addition
of new local city council assemblies (Orlando, Atlantic City, Tulsa, and
Berkeley to name just a few), all US governors, as well as national watershed
boundaries at the HUC10 and HUC12 levels. We're also keeping track of
the plans local and state governments are making to tweak legislative
boundaries after the 2010 Census. Redistricting will be a huge issue in
the open government world over the next few years, and we're ready for
the flood of maps and data that will need to be generated.
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New release of CiceroLive, loaded with tons of new legislative data |
Cicero is part of an exciting new trend in public
engagement by online media outlets. As news organizations
struggle to survive in a tough economy and compete for dwindling readership,
they are finding a wide variety of innovative ways to pull traffic to
their online news sites. Political data tools are a big draw.
For example,
The New York Times recently released 'Represent',
a district and news lookup tool for the five New York boroughs. 'Represent'
enables New Yorkers to type in their address and receive a list of their
elected officials (down to the neighborhood association level) and maps
of New York political districts. Users can click on the name of an elected
official and read all the Times articles that include a mention of that
official.
The
Oregonian, a newspaper serving Portland and its suburbs, has also been offering
their online readers more innovative ways to follow politics. On November
4, 2008, the day of the national elections, Their
Oregon Legislature page used the Cicero
API to make election results more local, relevant, and exciting. Readers
could enter their address into The Oregonian's Cicero-driven political
web tool and then watch live tallies of votes for key political races
in their legislative districts.
 What's next? Want to participate in the conversation?
http://twitter.com/CiceroAPI
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Research Project: Sourcemap
By
David Zwarg
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"I
am proud to be a part of the project, and Avencia is happy to see its
staff working on such cool projects."
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One of the many perks about working at Avencia is the opportunity to conduct
an independent research project. Full time staff that have been with the
company for at least 6 months are eligible to develop a research project
plan, and pitch it to the powers that be. We have profiled several other
research
projects
in previous newsletters, each solving a different problem. Sometimes staff
choose to take on projects pro-bono, rebuild older
Avencia applications, or learn
more about a given technology.
Last year, I learned about the MIT
Media Lab's Tangible
Media Group-produced 'Sourcemap'
project. Sourcemap is a tool, "for producers, business owners
and consumers to understand the impact of supply chains." My personal
interests initially attracted me to the project, and Avencia approached
the Sourcemap project in November of 2008 to see if they could use any
contributions of the mapping and/or web development kind. They were happy
to have contributions, and I began working on the spatial database and
mapping components of the project. They generously moved to an MIT Open
Source License, partially in order to accept the mapping and web development
contributions I would make.
Some of the components I have been working on have included:
- Migrating from a proprietary web mapping API to OpenLayers
- Implementing specialized "arcing" cartography between parts
and objects
- Rendering material networks across the International Date Line
The migration to OpenLayers
increased performance of object maps, and enabled the maps to display
a much greater number of features. This introduced a second problem when
there became too many features on the map to be able to distinguish them
- if any two parts of an object and an object itself was collinear, it
would be impossible to see their connection. By slightly arcing the network,
it became possible to discriminate parts in complex objects. Lastly, mapping
a network across the IDL introduces many
fun problems - one of which is that mapping a part from Japan to an
object in Alaska went the wrong way around the globe! The solution I came
up with involved creating networks that repeat across the globe and represent
the shortest distance between points.
The Sourcemap project generously moved to an MIT
Open Source License, partially in order to accept my contributions.
The challenges of working with the team at MIT from
Avencia's offices in Philadelphia introduced some growing pains to
the project, but the project lead, Leo
Bonanni, was committed to opening up the project to outside (of the
Media Lab) contributors, and managing a distributed team.
Now, Sourcemap is getting ready to go live (http://www.sourcemap.org/),
and they have some beautiful
and informative maps. I am proud to be a part of the project, and Avencia
is happy to see its staff working on such cool projects.
Interactive Sourcemap (Firefox only)!
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ESRI
Business Partner Conference and Developer Summit Review
By
Robert Cheetham |
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"As
a business partner that primarily does web-based software development,
these events [ESRI Business Partner Conference and Developer Summit] are
pretty important to us"
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Every year, Avencia makes the trip out to Palm Springs, California to attend
the ESRI
Business Partner Conference and Developer
Summit. As a business partner that primarily does web-based software
development, we consider these events pretty important for us, so I wanted
to outline what we regard as some of the highlights of the event.
These two conferences were primarily about the forthcoming release of
ArcGIS 9.3.1. While this is an interim release before version 9.4 goes
into beta testing this fall, it incorporates a number of features that
we think are important:
ArcGIS Server
ArcGIS Server will receive several improvements, most of which are focused
on performance and developer tools. They include:
- Performance - Dramatically improved performance
for dynamic mapping services. Cached map services will still be the
faster way to provide maps on the web, but a new, optimized rendering
engine as well as several tools for troubleshooting and resolving performance
issues should have a substantial impact.
- Licensing
- Map editing features will now be included in ArcGIS Server Standard
edition as well as in the Advanced edition.
- Analytical extensions (Spatial Analyst, 3D Analyst and Network Analyst)
will now be included in the Advanced edition without having to purchase
separate licenses.
- The Web ADF will no longer require a separate license if it is hosted
on a separate server.
- Developer API's - New versions of the Javascript
API and Flex
API will be joined by a new Silverlight
API, which is already in beta testing.
- Templates - ESRI will released updated versions and a broader range
of templates to help people get started more quickly with the various
API's
ArcGIS Online
The ArcGIS Online system will see several substantial extensions to its
functionality including:
- Upload your own data - ArcMap will be able to export
'Layer Packages' that combine data and cartography and can be uploaded
to ArcGIS Online and used in conjunction with cached base maps hosted
there. You will also have the option of setting limits on who can find
and use the data you store on ArcGIS Online.
- Low cost Web Map API - Will provide a set of base maps
and basic geoprocessing capabilities for organizations that do not need
all of the functionality in ArcGIS Server.
- Personalization - Save favorite data sets, create your
own mashups, upload layer packages, share data, and perform other activities
from your account.
- More data and services - ESRI has negotiated some new
agreements to provide data sets from Microsoft Virtual Earth, DeLorme,
and other providers. It will also be rolling out commercial versions
of its geocoding and routing services.
While not a "major" release, the focus on performance and flexibility
will make this a compelling upgrade for many organizations. If you have
any questions about how you might be able to leverage these new capabilities,
don't hesitate to get
in touch.
ESRI will be holding a series of half-day seminars on
Creating
Effective Web Maps through June 9. These events are a great way to learn more about
the new capabilities in the ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 release.
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Meet John Semmel and Tom
Johnson
By
Staff
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We
welcomed John and Tom to Avencia during the stormy month of April. Sorry
guys, we were told that It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia...
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Tom Johnson and John Semmel |
John Semmel joins Avencia as a Software Developer after many years
in the insurance industry where he worked primarily on creating rating and
quoting applications. His greatest hits in his previous position with Aetna
were an enterprise census collection and analysis tool, as well as an application
that enabled business people to enter, review, and test the rules that drove
product selection in a major quotation application. At Avencia, he is working
with the Law Enforcement team on an incident notification project for the
Philadelphia Housing
Authority and the second phase of ATF's Firearms
Analysis System. John is a native Philadelphian who counts cycling,
writing, and finger-style guitar among his hobbies.
Tom Johnson joins Avencia as a Software Development Intern from
Drexel University. He will be working with the Law Enforcement team on
several of the projects they have underway, including building some features
for HunchLab,
Avencia's geographic crime spike detection and early warning system. Currently
in his 4th year of a 5-year program at Drexel, Tom is completing his third
and final Co-Op experience here at Avencia. During his first two internships
at PPL, a power utility company, he supported their engineering and design
GIS by developing software enhancements and participating in design sessions
for new software projects. Tom’s first exposure to GIS came in 2005
through his activities as a volunteer firefighter in his hometown outside
of Allentown, PA. Tom enjoys music and reading, and the company of his
family’s 2 black Labrador retrievers while on visits home from school.
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Avencia Newsletter Puzzle:
Play with Election Data Like You Were Working for an Elections Commission
By
Deb Sting
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| KIF
Local Sample Data by Council District |
With the launch of a new Kaleidocade Local Sample, Avencia is excited to
make available local election data in a user-friendly
web interface.
Want to learn more about Philadelphia's elections but just don't have
the time to visit city hall? Head to http://sample.avencia.com/KIFLocal/
to check out the new database and find the answers to this month's puzzle.
Be the first to send in all 3 correct answers and receive a $25 gift
card to Barnes & Noble! Send your answers to info@avencia.com
On the home page, create an account or click 'Anonymous Login'. On the
start page, click 'Mapping and Analysis'. In Step 1: 'Select a
Geographic Area', select 'All Wards' from the menu. In Step 2:
'Create an Indicator Collection', select 'Philadelphia Mayoral Elections'
under 'Select a Category'. A list of available indicators will appear.
Select 'D-Michael Nutter, Vote Count, 2007 General Election' and click
'Add'. Then select 'R- Al Taubenberger, Vote Count, 2007 General Election'
and click 'Add'. In Step 3: 'Name the Indicator Collection', give
your collection a name and click 'Save' to view the results.
1. The resulting information can be viewed in four ways: map, table,
statistics, rank. Click 'Table' to view the number of votes each candidate
received in each ward. In Ward 21, how many votes did Mr. Nutter and Mr.
Taubenberger each receive?
2. Click on the 'Rank' tab at the top of the window to view the top and
bottom ranked locations, meaning the wards in which each candidate received
the most and fewest votes. In which ward did Mr. Nutter receive the fewest
votes? Hint: He received 922 votes in that ward.
3. Click on the 'Statistics' tab now to view a variety of statistics
related to the votes each candidate received. Select 'R- Al Taubenberger,
Vote Count, 2007 General Election' from the 'Indicator 1' drop-down menu.
What is the maximum number of votes that Mr. Taubenberger received in
any one ward?
Again, be the first to send in all 3 correct answers and receive
a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble! Send your answers to info@avencia.com
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Conference and Event Schedule
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2009
Washington GIS Conference - WAURISA
Bellevue, WA - May 4-6
Cecelia Buchanan presenting on "Geographic Prioritization
for Economic Development and Job Creation"
2009
NSF SBIR/STTR Phase II Conference
Baltimore, MD - May 18-21
Robert Cheetham attending
33rd
Annual IACP Law Enforcement Information Management (LEIM) Conference
Dallas, TX - May 18-21, 2009
Sean McGinnis attending and presenting HunchLab
at the ESRI booth
Where
2.0
San Jose, CA - May 19-21, 2009
Dave Felcan presenting HunchLab:
Using Spatial Statistics to Detect Changing Geographic Patterns in Crime
at one of the Ignite Sessions
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