your site name

 

For Students, Professors and Political Junkies Everywhere:

An Interactive Visualization of Texas Voters and the 2004 Presidential Election

 

Through the Center for Public Policy's new interactive software, you can analyze how Texans voted in the 2004 presidential election. Online users can choose from numerous demographic variables and county level data to see and compare election results in a dynamic graphic format.  For example, you can compare the median age of voters in Harris County to those found in Dallas County. Or you can consider income, race or party affiliation. Pick any combination of variables and see the results instantly.

 

Bill Hobby is the first one to use the program in the classroom. According to Hobby, "I used this magnificent software in teaching a quantitative methods course at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan this summer. The geographical presentation made that data much more understandable to the students—and so saved a lot of time."

 

Whether you are teaching a course, working on a research paper or aspiring to be the next top political consultant, be sure to take advantage of this interesting program!

 

Follow the instructions below to download the free software to start your own election analysis:

1) Right click the file and save to your desktop: electionview_cpp.exe

2) Double click the icon on your desktop.

3) Hit the extract button - a folder called "electionview" will appear on your desktop.

4) Double click on the "electionview" folder to open it.

5) Double click on the "electionview.exe" file to launch the visualization.

6) Select the "File" menu and choose "Load Data" from the menu.

7) Navigate to the "electionview/data" folder on your desktop and choose the file "elec2004.dat", then select "Open".

After a few seconds of loading, you will see a top down view of the state with all of the new variables for you to choose and display.

 

8) Make the window larger by dragging the bottom right-hand corner of the window with the mouse. (if possible) and relocate the GIS panel and

the Demographics panel to positions you feel more comfortable with.

9) Use the new navigation panel to change your viewing angles or zoom in and out.

10) Change variables in the demographics panel, or select a county of interest from the same window. (a quick reference guide for mouse

controls can be found in the Help/About menu).

11) Query a specific variable for a county by clicking it on the map with the left mouse button.

12) Relocate your view to a county by clicking it on the map with the right mouse button.

 

 

  Tell Us What You Think

 

Let us know what you think about this visualization tool by emailing Jim Granato.