The 2012 Presidential Election Map by Town for the State of Maine has been added to the Atlas (at right – click for a larger image). The results for Maine are a challenge to map because the Maine Secretary of State lists results for many individual unincorporated townships that the US Census Bureau aggregates into larger geographic regions. For example, the official election results in Washington County include a separate entry for Edmunds Twp (census aggregates into East Central Washington UT), Brookton Twp (census aggregated into North Washington UT), etc. In total, there are 26 unincorporated townships in the 2012 General Election results that are not listed as separate geographic unincorporated townships by the US Census Bureau. To further complicate matters, Maine tends to change which of these townships report from year to year.  In 2012, first-time listings include Concord and Spring Lake Twp (Somerset County), Lang Twp (Franklin County), T11 R4, T12 R13, T15 R6, T15 R9, TD R2 (Aroostook County), T7 SD (Hancock County).  E Twp in Aroostook County made its first appearance since 1988.  Township 14 (Washington County) did not make an appearance in the 2012 Election Results – although its possible that this is actually the entry “Cooper Twps” listed in the Maine Official Election Results.  There are a total of 24 entries of vote results that are not associated with a town (such as “Mattawamkeag Twps” – in this case, the results for this entry are from voters in unincorporated townships that have elections administered by Mattawamkeag).  Actual geographic origin of these votes in these 24 unincorporated township groupings is under investigation.

To facilitate faster generation of Maine Township Maps for elections, significant effort has been expended to create a database that is relevant to the posted election results.  The map above is the first of these to be created based on this new database.  It includes all the census county subdivisions plus all the unincorporated townships split out as defined by the State of Maine – resulting in a beautiful map.  FIPS codes for these non-census townships are created by the Atlas in a manner consistent with the census numbering (no existing FIPS codes exist for these townships).  More Maine maps to be added in the coming days.

At right is a thumbnail of the 2012 New York Presidential Election results map by county subdivision (click on map for large version).  The 2012 map is very similar to the 2008 New York map.  Of the 997 cities and towns, 926 of them were won by the same party in both 2008 and 2012.  President Obama had 32 pickups, with 40% of these in four Central New York counties (four towns in Oswego, three towns in each Cayuga, Cortland, and Seneca).  The largest pickup is Richmond County (Staten Island Borough), changing from a Republican 4% margin in 2008 to Democratic 2.6% margin – a swing of 10,709 votes, or 6.6%.  Mitt Romney had 39 pickups and were concentrated in Western New York and Southeastern New York (four in each Chautauqua, Dutchess, and Westchester with three in each Otsego and Orange).  His largest pickup is Huntington in Suffolk County (total vote of 91,971), with a swing of 6,866 or 7%. In total, Romney won 631 cities and towns vs. Obama’s 365 (one is a tie).  However, for the most populous cities and towns (those with greater than 10,000 ballots cast), Obama wins 73 to Romney’s 24, including all five New York City boroughs that alone had a combined margin of 1,553,717 votes.  Note that this map requires significant effort to compile as all data by town must be compiled from precinct reports obtained from each individual county board of elections.

One way to look at geographical election trends is the swing map – defined as the change in margin between the top two parties from election to election.  For example, if County A is won by the Democrat in 2008 with 54% of the vote to 46% and by the Republican in 2012 with 51% of the vote to 49%, the swing is 10 percentage points towards the Republican (D+8 to R+2).  The maps can be used to highlight variables of an election such as home state advantage (see  Robert Dole in 1996), candidate positions (example: 2012 shift in eastern Kentucky), and many more.

Another example from 2012 is the New Jersey Swing Map by municipality shown at right (click the map to enlarge).  New Jersey is one of only six states that swung towards the Democratic party in the 2012 General Election (complete list of the 2012 presidential swing results by state).  New Jersey is a unique case in 2012 because just days before the election, the area was struck by a powerful post-tropical cyclone (formerly known as Hurricane Sandy), causing immense damage. Among much misfortune, the storm also disrupted the election process.  The most recent official results by the New Jersey Department of State Division of Elections wasn’t posted until February 6, 2013 and even this tally does not capture all the votes from each county (amended results in Essex, Monmouth, and Morris counties are included in the Atlas, but are not included in the Division of Elections tally).  Analyzing the electoral impact of such an event is complex,  but given the swing map above when compared to the nation as a whole and even nearby states such as Connecticut, it appears to suggest that many citizens of New Jersey responded favorably at the ballot box to the incumbent President Obama’s response to the crisis.