What this post is about In the previous post we showed how to set up a simple interactive map using Python and its folium package. As the example, we used a Federal electorate situated within the city of Melbourne, Australia, and the various voting places, or polling places (also known as polling "booths") …

Message about the underlying software NOTE: much of the material and discussion here uses the Python package "folium", which is a front end to the Javascript package "leaflet.js". The lead developer of leaflet.js is Volodymyr Agafonkin, a Ukrainian up until recently living and working in Kyiv. Leaflet version 1.80 was …

In this post we look at two Divisions from the recent Federal election: the inner city seat of Melbourne, and the bayside seat of Macnamara. Up until the recent election, Melbourne was the only Division to have a Greens representative. Macnamara, previously known as "Melbourne Ports" has been a Labor …

This continues on from the previous post, trying to make some sense of the voting in my electorate of Wills and the neighbouring electorate of Cooper. Both these electorates (or more formally "Divisions"), as I mentioned in the previous post, are very similar in their geography, demography, and history. Last …

So the Australian federal election of 2022 is over as far as the public is concerned; all votes have been cast and now it's a matter of waiting while the Australian Electoral Commission tallies the numbers, sorts all the preferences, and arrives at a result. Because of the complications of the voting system, and of all …

So this goes back quite some time to the recent Australian Federal election on May 18. In my own electorate (known formally as a "Division") of Cooper, the Greens, who until recently had been showing signs of winning the seat, were pretty well trounced by Labor. Some background asides First, "Labor" …

The date January 26 is one of immense current debate in Australia. Officially it's the date of Australia Day, which supposedly celebrates the founding of Australia. To Aboriginal peoples it is a day of deep mourning and sadness, as the date commemorates over two centuries of oppression, bloodshed, and dispossession. To …

Election mapping A few weeks ago there was a by-election in my local electorate (known as an electoral division) of Batman here in Australia. I was interested in comparing the results of this election with the previous election two years ago. In this division it's become a two-horse race: the Greens against the …