Election results chart

A stacked bar chart ideal for election results. Includes a coalition builder feature

Updated 6 years ago to v3.1.0 by Flourish team

How to use this template

Election results chart

This template is ideal for visualising election results. You can show one overall result, or specific regions that can be selected from a dropdown.

Features

  • Toggle parties in the legend to create custom "coalitions"
  • Add historical data to compare the current results to a previous election

Data requirements

Each row after the header should be a region (eg. a state, constituency or just "nationwide"). There should be a column for the name of the region, and a column for each party in the election. In the historical data sheet you can add data for a previous election. This sheet follows the same format as the current results, make sure to use exactly the same region and party names, as this is being used to compare the results.

Tips

  • You can specify custom colors to represent the right parties in the "Chart colors" box
  • It's possible to translate the labels in this chart to your own language in the "Text and translation" box
  • You can change the default region to show in "Dropdown" box, make sure your value is case sensitive
  • You can also show other values than %, in "Label styles" and "Custom scale" boxes you can change the scale and the suffix

This section documents API usage specific to this template, so for an introduction we suggest you refer to the generic API documentation instead.

template: @flourish/election-results-chart

version: 3

Template data

There are three different formats in which you can supply data to this template. The most convenient for you to use likely depends on the source of your data, as described below.

1. Array of arrays, and a bindings object

You can supply arrays of arrays to opts.data, which might look like:

{
    data: {
        values_now: [
            [ "Values_nowColumn1Value1", "Values_nowColumn2Value1",
            [ "Values_nowColumn1Value2", "Values_nowColumn2Value2",
            [ "Values_nowColumn1Value3", "Values_nowColumn2Value3",
            ...
        ],
        values_historical: [
            [ "Values_historicalColumn1Value1", "Values_historicalColumn2Value1",
            [ "Values_historicalColumn1Value2", "Values_historicalColumn2Value2",
            [ "Values_historicalColumn1Value3", "Values_historicalColumn2Value3",
            ...
        ]
    }
}

where each array of arrays represents the rows in a data sheet.

To tell the API how the values from each column should be associated with the keys that the template is expecting, you must also supply an object attached to opts.bindings. (The meanings of the keys in the bindings object are documented below.) The minimal bindings you can supply for this template are as shown in this example:

{
    template: "@flourish/election-results-chart",
    version: "3",
    bindings: {
        values_now: {
            name: 0, // index of a column in your data
        },
        values_historical: {
            name: 0, // index of a column in your data
        }
    },
    data: {
        values_now: [
            [ "Values_nowColumn1Value1", "Values_nowColumn2Value1",
            [ "Values_nowColumn1Value2", "Values_nowColumn2Value2",
            [ "Values_nowColumn1Value3", "Values_nowColumn2Value3",
            ...
        ],
        values_historical: [
            [ "Values_historicalColumn1Value1", "Values_historicalColumn2Value1",
            [ "Values_historicalColumn1Value2", "Values_historicalColumn2Value2",
            [ "Values_historicalColumn1Value3", "Values_historicalColumn2Value3",
            ...
        ]
    }
}

All possible bindings that you can supply are shown in this example:

{
    template: "@flourish/election-results-chart",
    version: "3",
    bindings: {
        values_now: {
            name: 0, // index of a column in your data
            values: [1, 2, ...], // index(es) of column(s) in your data
        },
        values_historical: {
            name: 0, // index of a column in your data
            values: [1, 2, ...], // index(es) of column(s) in your data
        }
    },
    data: {
        values_now: [
            [ "Values_nowColumn1Value1", "Values_nowColumn2Value1",
            [ "Values_nowColumn1Value2", "Values_nowColumn2Value2",
            [ "Values_nowColumn1Value3", "Values_nowColumn2Value3",
            ...
        ],
        values_historical: [
            [ "Values_historicalColumn1Value1", "Values_historicalColumn2Value1",
            [ "Values_historicalColumn1Value2", "Values_historicalColumn2Value2",
            [ "Values_historicalColumn1Value3", "Values_historicalColumn2Value3",
            ...
        ]
    }
}

2. Array of objects with arbitrary keys, and a bindings object

This format is most likely useful when you have data from an external source, such as CSV data loaded from d3-dsv. You should supply this attached to the opts.data, which might look like:

{
        values_now: [
            { "Values_nowHeader1": ..., "Values_nowHeader2": ..., ... },
            { "Values_nowHeader1": ..., "Values_nowHeader2": ..., ... },
            { "Values_nowHeader1": ..., "Values_nowHeader2": ..., ... },
            ...
        ],
        values_historical: [
            { "Values_historicalHeader1": ..., "Values_historicalHeader2": ..., ... },
            { "Values_historicalHeader1": ..., "Values_historicalHeader2": ..., ... },
            { "Values_historicalHeader1": ..., "Values_historicalHeader2": ..., ... },
            ...
        ]
    }

... but with the keys being the column headers from your source data instead. You must also supply an object attached to opts.bindings. The minimal bindings you can supply for this template are as shown in this example:

{
    template: "@flourish/election-results-chart",
    version: "3",
    bindings: {
        values_now: {
            name: "Values_nowHeader1",
        },
        values_historical: {
            name: "Values_historicalHeader1",
        }
    },
    data: {
        values_now: [
            { "Values_nowHeader1": ..., "Values_nowHeader2": ..., ... },
            { "Values_nowHeader1": ..., "Values_nowHeader2": ..., ... },
            { "Values_nowHeader1": ..., "Values_nowHeader2": ..., ... },
            ...
        ],
        values_historical: [
            { "Values_historicalHeader1": ..., "Values_historicalHeader2": ..., ... },
            { "Values_historicalHeader1": ..., "Values_historicalHeader2": ..., ... },
            { "Values_historicalHeader1": ..., "Values_historicalHeader2": ..., ... },
            ...
        ]
    }
}

All possible bindings that you can supply are shown in this example:

{
    template: "@flourish/election-results-chart",
    version: "3",
    bindings: {
        values_now: {
            name: "Values_nowHeader1",
            values: ["Values_nowHeader2", "Values_nowHeader3", ...],
        },
        values_historical: {
            name: "Values_historicalHeader1",
            values: ["Values_historicalHeader2", "Values_historicalHeader3", ...],
        }
    },
    data: {
        values_now: [
            { "Values_nowHeader1": ..., "Values_nowHeader2": ..., ... },
            { "Values_nowHeader1": ..., "Values_nowHeader2": ..., ... },
            { "Values_nowHeader1": ..., "Values_nowHeader2": ..., ... },
            ...
        ],
        values_historical: [
            { "Values_historicalHeader1": ..., "Values_historicalHeader2": ..., ... },
            { "Values_historicalHeader1": ..., "Values_historicalHeader2": ..., ... },
            { "Values_historicalHeader1": ..., "Values_historicalHeader2": ..., ... },
            ...
        ]
    }
}

(As before, the keys containing "Header" would be replaced by column names from your data source.)

3. Array of objects with template-defined keys

There is an alternative format you can use, which is likely to be easier to use if your data is not from a spreadsheet source. With this alternative format you supply your data to the template as an array of objects, attached to opts.data, where the keys must be those used by the template, as documented below. In this case there is no need to supply a bindings object, since the key names are already those expected by the template. The required properties in the data object are as follows (scroll down for a description of what each property is):

{
    template: "@flourish/election-results-chart",
    version: "3",
    data: {
    values_now: [
        {
            name: ...,
            values: [...]
        },
        ...
    ],
    values_historical: [
        {
            name: ...,
            values: [...]
        },
        ...
    ]
},
    ...
}

And the full list of all possible properties is as follows:

{
    template: "@flourish/election-results-chart",
    version: "3",
    data: {
    values_now: [
        {
            name: ...,
            values: [...]
        },
        ...
    ],
    values_historical: [
        {
            name: ...,
            values: [...]
        },
        ...
    ]
},
    ...
}

Meanings of the template data keys:

  • values_now.name: The name of the data series (eg. voting district, data mode)
  • values_now.values: One column per party, with party names as header rows.
  • values_historical.name: The name of the data series (eg. voting district, data mode)
  • values_historical.values: One column per party, with party names as header rows.

Template settings

Options for opts.state.

Chart styles

color.palette colors

Palette.

color.extend boolean

Auto-extend. Automatically generate additional colours when needed to avoid the palette colours being used more than once. Added colours are based on the average lightness and chroma values of the palette. This works best if the palette’s colours do not have very high or low saturation.

color.advanced boolean

Fine tune. Fine tune how additional colours are added to the palette.

color.hue_rotation_angle number

Hue rotation for added colours. Angle, in degrees in HCL colourspace, between one generated colour and the next. The default value, ~360/(Golden ratio), ensures adjacent hues are not too similar.

Max: 360

color.custom_palette text

Custom overrides. Type the name of the entity whose colour you want to set, a colon and then a colour (using a name, hex-code or rgb declaration). Multiple colours can be set using multiple lines. For example:


Party 1: red
Party 2: #4455AA
Party 3: rgb(30,168,26)

use_custom_scale boolean

Use custom maximum value for scale. On default, will use the sum of all data points as the max value. Enable this setting to use a custom value

custom_scale_max number

Maximum value for scale. This will set the maximum value of the scale. Eg. the total amount of seats to be won in an election

Annotation

middle_line_position number

Position. in %

Max: 100

middle_line_content string

Text.

middle_line_text_color color

Colour.

middle_line_dashoffset string

Dash width and offset. eg. 2,2

middle_line_width number

Thickness.

middle_line_color color

Colour.

Label styles

label_font_size number

Text size.

label_font_color color

Text colour.

label_format.prefix string

Prefix. Text to place in front of number

label_format.suffix string

Suffix. Text to place after number

label_format.n_dec number

Decimal places. Use negative integers to round to positive powers of ten (eg -2 rounds to the nearest 100)

Min: -10

Max: 10

label_format.strip_zeros boolean

Remove trailing zeros.

label_format.strip_separator boolean

Hide thousands separator below 10,000. Turn off if you want four-digit numbers to include a separator, e.g. “1,234” rather than “1234”.

label_format.transform_labels boolean

Multiply/divide values.

label_format.transform string

Allowed values:

  • multiply (Multiply by)
  • divide (Divide by)
  • exponentiate (×10 to the power of)

label_format.multiply_divide_constant number

label_format.exponentiate_constant number

label_suffix string

Historical label suffix.

Interface

hide_dropdown boolean

Hide dropdown.

hide_empty_rows boolean

Hide empty rows in dropdown.

current_id string

Default value of dropdown.

margin_top number

Top.

margin_right number

Right.

margin_bottom number

Bottom.

margin_left number

Left.

hide_legend boolean

Hide legend.

Text and translation

Text left of dropdown.

instruction_label string

Instruction text above legend.

placeholder_text string

No data placeholder text. Placeholder text if there is no data

subtitle_text string

Text below results.

Dropdown translations. Write every translation a new line in this format original_word:translation

header.title string

Title.

header.subtitle string

Subtitle.

header.color color

Color.

header.align string

Alignment.

Allowed values:

  • left (fa-align-left)
  • center (fa-align-center)
  • right (fa-align-right)

header.margin number

Margin.

header.margin_advanced boolean

Advanced margin settings.

header.margin_top number

Top.

header.margin_right number

Right.

header.margin_bottom number

Bottom.

header.margin_left number

Left.

footer.source_name string

Source name.

footer.source_url string

Source url.

footer.multiple_sources boolean

Multiple sources.

footer.source_name_2 string

Source name.

footer.source_url_2 string

Source url.

footer.source_name_3 string

Source name.

footer.source_url_3 string

Source url.

footer.source_label string

Source label.

footer.note string

Note.

footer.size number

Size.

footer.color color

Color.

footer.align string

Alignment.

Allowed values:

  • left (fa-align-left)
  • center (fa-align-center)
  • right (fa-align-right)

footer.margin number

Overall.

footer.margin_top number

Top.

footer.margin_right number

Right.

footer.margin_bottom number

Bottom.

footer.margin_left number

Left.

footer.margin_advanced boolean

Advanced.

Number formatting

localization.input_decimal_separator string

Decimal separator in data sheet. Used for interpreting your data. Only change if data is not displaying on the chart as expected.

Allowed values:

  • . (.)
  • , (,)

localization.output_separators string

Number format to display. How the numbers should appear on chart labels

Allowed values:

  • ,. (12,235.67)
  • ., (12.345,67)
  • . (12235.67)
  • , (12345,67)
  • . (12 235.67)
  • , (12 345,67)