The Atlas is in the process of upgrading the county township maps in the members section. Going beyond the previous flat vote result map, the new maps are enhanced and greatly expanded, including an image-map to highlight the name of the city/town and the summary result in a pop-up window, include mouse-over maps/links for party, swing, trend, and the previous vote result. In addition, the maps are also larger. Currently, these new maps and features are available for President in 2012 and 2008 in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, as well as brand new maps for New Jersey. I’m currently in the process of creating the Maine maps – an endeavor that is taking quite some effort due to the large mismatch between the available census maps and the township entities that are included in the Maine official results. Future expansion of this feature is planned to include more states, more offices, and more elections further back in time.
Somerset County, ME 2012 Presidential Election Results
Hidden in the 2012 Presidential Election data is a small unincorporated township in Maine that was won by Ron Paul. There were a total of three votes cast – all three were write-in votes for Ron Paul – both Obama and Romney came up empty. The 2012 general election is the first time that the Maine Secretary of State Bureau of Corporations, Elections & Commissions has published presidential election results for Concord Twp. Although not actively running for President in the 2012 General Election, Ron Paul was certified as a declared write-in candidate for President in Maine, allowing his write-in votes to be counted (see 2012 Maine Declared Write-in Candidates).
The image to the right shows the full results by township for Somerset County, ME in the 2012 General Election for President. Concord Twp is located in Somerset County on the west side of the Kennebec River to the north of Embden Town (colored in dark yellow on the map). Concord Twp is included with Lexington Twp to form the census “Central Somerset UT”.
In spite of the plethora of low population towns in New England, wins by “third party” candidates are quite rare. Not since Ross Perot in 1996, has a third party won in any New England town (Perot won three and tied in a fourth in 1996. Perot won a substantial number of towns in 1992). Nader tied Al Gore in 2000 in Pinkham’s Grant, NH 3-3.
The 2013 Special United States Senate Election in Massachusetts preliminary results have been posted. The contest between Democratic Congressman Ed Markey, representing the Massachusetts 5th district and Republican Gabriel Gomez has ended with a 54.8% to 44.8% victory for Markey. This is a Democratic hold of the seat vacated by now Secretary of State John Kerry.
I have received a signed copy of Equal Voice Voting Making Our Votes Count in the Electoral College by Jerry Spriggs. The book proposes a modified Electoral College, named Equal Voice that “combines the power of the popular vote while retaining an equal representation of every state in the country.” The book draws data from the Atlas for use in analysis – the Acknowledgements state “It would not have happened without the ready reference and data gleaned from Dave Leip’s Atlas of Presidential Elections data (https://uselectionatlas.org)”. I’m always happy to see (and receive) examples of the site’s application!
Some more description of the book on Amazon: “The current U.S. presidential election process, known as the Electoral College, needs to be modified. Only a minority of our nation’s voters are actually represented in the Electoral College in its current form. Because of the low voter representation, our citizens are not encouraged to vote; a state of apathy is prevalent in the very process designed to choose our nation’s leader. Voters are discouraged and our democracy suffers. Something must change! Equal Voice Voting is a new presidential election method that modifies the Electoral College. Equal Voice Voting gives both the popular as well as the geographic representation needed to allow everyone an equal voice in our presidential elections. It eliminates the winner-take-all approach, giving every political party an opportunity to be represented in every presidential election. This book discusses other voting alternatives, such as the National Popular Voting bill and the option of relying on voting by congressional districts…”
The Atlas now has a twitter account @uselectionatlas – track site updates and information about elections through the link on the Home Page or via the widget in the blog sidebar at right.
The 2012 General Election data have been updated today to reflect the final official town and county totals in Massachusetts. In addition, several states have published amended results – including New York and New Jersey. I have also added several corrections as discovered during compilation of individual county reports.
Data files available on the store page are also updated with these latest results.
With the addition of official MA county/town data, this brings to a close the official data compilation for the 2012 General Election. Further updates will consist of corrections or write-in votes discovered during precinct compilation.
2008 General Election data for President by city and town have been added for the states of Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Kansas, and a partial set from Indiana. These data are not fully reconciled with official totals. However, there are a lot of good matching data for most of the counties in these states. Statewide township maps and individual county township maps (Michigan and Illinois) will be forthcoming.
A new feature on the Atlas is a microblogging style activity stream. This page shows the latest updates in the 2012 General Election features – including new election poll entries, new and updated election predictions, new and updated endorsements, and votes and endorsements for President in the mock election. See the latest forum community activity.
