Google Gets it Right in PA

Up to now, we've been somewhat disappointed with Google's election maps. But their latest offering for Pennsylvania does a great job of merging election results with demographics via maps, charts, and even a spreadsheet.

The Google Lat Long Blog has the details. We hope the Google Elections Team goes back and produces this sort of county-level analysis for all states.

Our guess is that similar precinct-level maps and charts may be on the way from Google. But this is unlikely to happen on a nationwide scale until the 2012 election. By then, most states will have produced precinct-level datasets depicting the 2008 election as part of the 2010 census redistricting and reapportionment cycle.

In the meantime, we've produced precinct-level Google Earth maps for eight states showing the 2004 election.

More Bush-Gore

Bush-Gore precinct maps in Google Earth KMZ format are now available via the Google Earth forum for two additional late primary states -- Indiana (May 6) and West Virginia (May 13).

Click graphic for larger image.

With Kentucky (May 20) sandwiched in between, it would have been nice to include the Bluegrass State as well. But, alas, there are very few counties where the election data from 2000 matches the 2000 census precinct geography.

The Google Earth files are organized into folders sorted by county,allowing for faster display and easier export to Google Maps. See this map of Kanawah County, WV (Charleston).

As in the Kanawah County Google Map, you may wish to make the colors a little more transparent for Google Maps. You can do this by doing a search and replace on the statewide KML file -- search for b0 and change to 7f.

West Virginia election data could not be matched to precinct boundaries in Cabell County and a few other areas. Indiana is more spotty -- precincts reflecting approximately 80% of the votes cast in the 2000 election are displayed.

There is a lot more demographic and election data available for West Virginia via FairVote2020's West Virginia interactive map. Also, at the end of the web page, you'll find Bush-Gore and 2000 Election Day turnout maps in Adobe format for 60 cities and towns.

This is the first time we have produced a map for Indiana, so you'll have to rely on the SocioEcon Mapper for additional info on Indiana neighborhoods.

Bush-Gore by 2000 Precinct in Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania primary is just a month away. There is probably a statewide GIS database showing Bush-Kerry by precinct, but the gatekeepers at the political party headquarters will never make it available to the public.

Fortunately, Pennsylvania is a state where a Bush-Gore map is just about as useful. So we have uploaded a precinct-level Google Earth map showing 2000 presidential election results in a head-to-head Bush-Gore contest.

You can download the KMZ file from the Google Earth forum, where we have uploaded several Google Earth precinct-level maps from other states showing the 2004 election.

The KML file is organized by county to make it easy to export precincts into Google Maps. Lehigh County (Allentown) is shown below.


View Larger Map

The FairVote2020 Pennsylvania interactive map was probably the most heavily used map on our website prior to the 2004 election. You can query that map for a lot more demographic and voting data than you get with the Google Earth map.

If you need detailed paper maps, you can download Adobe maps for 55 places at the end of the PA interactive map web page.

Zillow Neighborhood Demographic and Poverty Stats

This KMZ file aggregates basic population and poverty demographics for the Zillow neighborhood boundaries.


View in Google Earth (7.5 mb)

We used census block group data from the SF1 and SF3 file of the 2000 census. The map is color-coded by the percentage of the population living at or below the poverty level.

Neighborhood boundaries are sorted by city and state in the sidebar. For faster display, the initial map shows Washington, DC only. Click boxes on the sidebar to display additional states. Use Ctrl-click on the map to display the population and poverty stats by neighborhood.

Block groups are often split by neighborhood boundaries. For the population data by race and ethnicity, it is possible to develop more accurate estimates using block-level data from the SF1 file. However, for the poverty data, block groups represent the smallest unit reported by the Census Bureau.

In a few instances (less than 1 percent), neighborhood estimates could not be derived due to topology errors when converting from the original source Zillow shapefiles. (This includes all of Wake County-Raleigh, NC). You can identify these discrepancies by overlaying the non-color-coded KMZ file posted in the previous entry.

For more detail, remember that you can always overlay SF1 and SF3 datasets from gCensus as discussed in a previous post.

The neighborhood boundaries are made available in shapefile format by Zillow.com under a Creative Commens License.

The entire KMZ file is too large to display in Google Maps, but you can break it up into city-by-city KMZ files and save to Google My Maps.

You'll also need to copy the legend to the state or city folder you have created.



View Larger Map

Zillow Neighborhoods

Here is something that might be useful for voter registration and GOTV efforts. This Google Earth KMZ file contains boundaries for nearly 7,000 neighborhoods in 150 cities. The file is based on shapefiles released by Zillow.com yesterday.

View in Google Earth (6.5 mb)

State- by-state shapefiles are available here:

http://www.zillow.com/labs/NeighborhoodBoundaries.htm

Additional details are posted on the Zillow Blog.

Ctrl-Click on the map to display the city and region ID in addition to the neighborhood name.

For faster load time, Google Earth initially displays boundaries and labels for Arizona only. Click on the sidebar boxes to display additional states.

Labels are sorted by state and city in the sidebar. At some point, we may update the file to include socioeconomic data estimates from the SF3 file of the 2000 census.

Estimated Latino 18+ citizens (2006) by tract

Click graphic for larger image.

View this map in Google Earth (500k)

This Google Earth KMZ file contains nearly 20,000 census tract centroids, representing all census tracts with an estimated 50 or more Latinos of voting age who are citizens as of July, 2006.

These estimates can be used to help set targets for voter registration efforts in Latino neighborhoods.

The tracts are sorted by state, county, and place. For faster load time, Google Earth initially displays Wisconsin only. Click on the sidebar boxes to display additional states.

Use the gCensus web form found here to obtain tract boundaries in KMZ format for your areas of interest.

No census tract in ME, NH, VT, or WV met the 50 person threshold.

Citizenship rates are from the 2000 census. The Census Bureau does not provide citizenship estimates by ethnicity for areas smaller than a census tract.

The 2006 citizen counts are adjusted to take into account population change.

Source: Derived from 2000 Census SF 4 file and Caliper Corporation Time Series Data 2006.

See also: Latino Registered Voters in CA by Precinct (2004). Unfortunately, we are unaware of publicly available information that would allow us to replicate this for states other than California.

Estimated Asian 18+ citizens (2006) by tract

The Google Earth KMZ file depicted in the map below contains over 6,500 census tract centroids, representing all census tracts with an estimated 50 or more Asian-Americans of voting age who are citizens as of July, 2006.

Click graphic for larger image.

View this map in Google Earth (200k)

These estimates can be used to help set targets for voter registration efforts in Asian-American neighborhoods.

The tracts are sorted by state, county, and place.

Use the gCensus web form found here to obtain tract boundaries in KMZ format for your areas of interest.

No census tract in ID, MT, ND, SD, WV, or WY met the 50 person threshold.

Source: Derived from 2000 Census SF 4 file and Caliper Corporation Time Series Data 2006.

GOTV Demographics and Google Earth

Thanks to gCensus, loading demographic information into Google Earth is a relatively simple process. You can produce a Google Earth KML file to visualize demographic and socioeconomic data from the 2000 U.S. Census -- in some cases down to the census block level.

Let's say you want to pinpoint areas in Green Bay, WI for a door-to-door Latino voter registration drive. According to the 2000 census, there were over 7,000 Latinos in Green Bay. (The Census Bureau estimates that the Latino population has grown to 10,000 in 2007).

We know from the block-group level Wisconsin interactive GOTV map that neighborhoods east of the river have significant concentrations of Latinos. Click here to use the interactive map zoomed to the focus area shown in the graphic below. Areas shaded orange are 20% to 40% Latino.

The FairVote2020 interactive map shows detail only to the block group level (encompassing several city blocks), so the block-level detail available from gCensus can help focus the voter registration effort.

Below is a Google Earth graphic showing more detailed block-level data -- highlighting all census blocks in Green Bay with more than 31 persons who are Latino. These blocks are shaded tan to orange with white boundaries. The map dataset was created from Summary File 1 using the gCensus web form found here.

Click here to download the Green Bay Latino KMZ block file -- edited from the original gCensus KML file. The gCensus dataset expresses block population counts as a range, rather than a discrete count. As part of the editing process, we eliminated all but the top three ranges.

In a future post, we will examine an obvious issue -- citizenship status. According to the 2006 American Community Survey, just one-third of the 6,700 Latinos of voting age in Green Bay are citizens.

Note that in order to overlay census blocks on top of the Brown County Bush-Kerry precinct map as in the map above, we changed the altitude settings of the block file to begin displaying at 8 meters.

Because we are focusing on just a couple dozen census blocks, the KMZ file imports into Google Maps with ease.

View Larger Map

For starters, these blocks are the best areas to begin door-knocking in search of new Latino voters.

From Google Earth to My Maps

For neighborhood-level GOTV work, the complete Brown County map displayed in the previous entry is unnecessarily large. But if you have installed Google Earth, you can work with bite-size chunks.

Click on "View Larger Map" in the Brown County Bush-Kerry map, then click on "View in Google Earth".

Start Google Earth and open the Brown_WI.kmz file. Next zoom in to the area of the county where you want to focus your efforts. In the Google Earth graphic below, the view is zoomed to part of Green Bay.



Add a folder under My Places called Green Bay. Next use Ctrl-Left Click on the Brown_WI.kmz map to identify the voting districts of interest. Use Ctrl-Right Click to copy and paste each ward to the Green Bay folder. (You can also copy and paste from the sidebar, without using the map.) Finally, go to the sidebar and copy the legend folder in Brown_WI.kmz to the Green Bay folder.

Save the Green Bay folder as a .kmz file. Go to Google My Maps and select "Create New Map". Next select "Import" and upload the .kmz file from your computer. Your map should look something like this:



View Larger Map


And you are now ready to overlay your own data -- for example, geocoded placemarks showing newly registered voters.

2004 Precinct KMZ Files

We have produced statewide precinct files in Google Earth KMZ format for eight states -- California, Georgia, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin. You can download them from the Google Earth Community forum.

The precinct boundaries are those in effect for the 2004 election. The maps are themed to show the vote percentages for Bush-Kerry (excluding third party votes).

Use CTRL-Click on the map to display a balloon popup with the voting stats for a specific precinct surrounding or near the clicked point or click on the placemark icon.

Allow some time for the files to load. Except for New Hampshire, the statewide files are way too large for display in Google Maps. However, as we will explain in the next few posts, they can be imported into Google Maps in a piecemeal fashion.

Latino Registered Voters in CA by Precinct (2004)

Click graphic for larger image.

View in Google Earth

This file (about 3.5 mb) shows Latino registered voters as a percentage of all voters in California by 2004 statistical precinct. It is based on data obtained from the California Statewide Database.

The coverage is identical to the Bush-Kerry map described in our previous post, except that the map excludes precincts where less than five percent of registered voters are Latino. Those under five percent areas are transparent.

As in the Bush-Kerry map, some areas could not be matched to precinct geography. Those precincts, along with unpopulated areas, are also transparent on the map.

These are statistical precincts and in many instances do not follow local precinct boundaries for registration and elections.

The statistical precincts are coded by zip code.

Use CTRL-Click on the map to display a balloon popup with the voting stats for a specific precinct surrounding or near the clicked point.


Use the edit menu item “Find in Places” to locate and scroll through all precincts around a specific zip code.

In addition to the thematic map file above, you can download this point overlay file to click and view by precinct the total number of registered voters and the number of Latino registered voters at the time of the 2004 election.

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/475261/page/0/vc/1

Google Earth -- Bush-Kerry by Precinct in California

We can convert any thematic voting map into Google Earth .kml/kmz format. For an extreme statewide example, check out this Bush-Kerry statewide precinct map for California.



The file is large, so you will need a fast computer and a relatively new graphics card. Here is a much smaller one showing Washington DC voting precincts.