Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums

Redirects to yearly election lists

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (government and legislation) § Redirects to yearly election lists for visibility

Contents guidelines on name dropping companies, newspapers, individuals endorsements

2024 Multnomah County District Attorney election#Endorsements Is it customary in election articles to have a massive name drop naming out businesses, people and organizations who endorse them? I am not too familiar on this subject area, but it seems totally undue and I removed them in Special:Diff/1226817944 but I want to get second opinion on the general feeling on the appropriateness of including list of endorsements like this. Graywalls (talk) 00:57, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2023 Perth City Council election#Requested move 9 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2023 Perth City Council election#Requested move 9 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 04:06, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Bahati

Hi. So, we have two articles with similar titles, namely Bahati Constituency, which is a constituency in Kenya, and Bahati (constituency), which is a constituency in Zambia.

Are the brackets on the Zambian article enough for a disambiguation? And if they are, what hatnote can we put on either article (maybe we should use not to be confused with)? GeographicAccountant (talk) 20:48, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

It looks like there are different naming conventions for Kenyan and Zambian constituencies, so it might be enough under WP:SMALLDETAILS. I've added hatnotes to the two articles as an interim measure. Cheers, Number 57 21:27, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Infobox legislative election suggested edit

Hi editors. I have started a discussion at Template talk:Infobox legislative election#Suggested changes to change possible row headers for future election, suggesting an edit that would allow any page using Template:Infobox legislative election for a future election to say "seats at dissolution" or list the number of seats won at the last election when the "ongoing" parameter in the template is set to "yes". --TedEdwards 22:09, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Infobox election vs Infobox legislative election

I have been off Wikipedia for a long time now but aware of this situation thanks to Twitter and the hate campaign online against @Number 57 for changing {{Infobox election}} to {{Infobox legislative election}}. Personally, I think that the changes are positive in most cases (multiparty systems), because current system fails to account for parties beyond the major 4-6, thus failing its WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE, as it fails to summarise elections, but also includes unnecessary information such as pictures of leaders, which generally doesn't have any effect on election results, and current infoboxes with many entries unwieldly too, so much that it is impossible to view without scrolling vertically (and horizontally in mobile), which is not the case with tabular infobox. Note that the new infobox also has a column for leader's name which might be an important fact depending on country and its electoral culture. So, nothing of value is lost. But, since there is so strong an opposition, do we need to discuss it formally if it hasn't been done already? Thanks! —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 16:51, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

TIE and TILE has its own strengths and weaknesses. Not all elections are created equally, and it's good we have multiple options for cases such as this. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:06, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree, but it seems that Twitter is hellbent on reverting any and all uses of TILE to TIE, because... it looks good! —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 15:25, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes I just noticed this in Talk:2022 Philippine House of Representatives elections when someone must have checked where TILE was being used then saw it. This had used TIE but I had to use TILE since (1) politics in the Philippines is personality-based, in the House elections, campaigning is by district-level, so there are no actual "party leaders" in the US sense when they had Pelosi and Ryan during the last decade; (2) the political parties don't stand for anything, so it doesn't really which party had the most seats; (3) after Duterte his supporters had splintered into different parties, with the best performing party just getting 22% of the vote in 2022; (4) the party-list election sees 50+ parties win seats, with no party winning more than 3 of the 60+ contested seats. How are you displaying that with TIE? Howard the Duck (talk) 16:31, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I think that over the years we have had a (very) loose, nominal consensus on deciding on the use of TILE in a case-by-case basis. This has most successfully happened in some of the cases under specific conditions and with some limitations (UK and Italy I can think of), which is good. However, TIE has been in place over decades and is seen by many people not only as the actual status quo version, but also as an emblem for Election Wikipedia and as a quick and easy summary for elections that most people have found as useful. The way TILE has been implemented over the years in many articles (through imposition by few editors rather than through consensus by most editors or even readers) has greatly contributed to the recent uproar against TILE.

Yeah, TIE may fail to account for parties beyond the major 4-6... but maybe in many elections we don't need to have more than 4-6 parties in the infobox. That would depend on the country's actual political reality. Has a party securing 1 seat the same relevance in illustrating and summarizing an election than the party winning it with 200 seats? Remember: infoboxes are meant to summarize, not to replace. And they are meant to help, not to compete against each other. For the full results you already have a section for that; TILE has worked best there where it fulfills additional purposes other than "hey this shows all the parties, let's go with that". Proven usefulness works better than imposition. TILE also has severe limitations, which have not been seriously considered when replacing long-standing TIE versions in many election articles.

The intrinsic nature of the local political system is a strong factor to consider the use of one or the other (personality-based systems, relevance of parties, electoral system, etc.). TILE may work for Knesset or Dutch elections, but may prove a disaster for UK or Spanish elections; it may work for some periods of time (Italy 2018 onwards, though there is some confusion there as far as I see) or even with some forms of combinations with TIE. Again: meant to help readers, not to compete against each other. Analyzing each problematic situation in a case-by-case basis should be the way to go, under the understanding that not all election articles may have problems nor improvement requirements, and under the assumption that broad consensus-based solutions are the most likely to result in long-lasting, conflictless solutions. Impru20^talk 17:45, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I'd agree that it is a case by case basis, country by country, election by election. TIE works if there are at most 4 leading parties. Articles using TIE with 6 or more entries look ugly. TILE can be improved upon in its current state, but people should keep an open mind on this. Howard the Duck (talk) 18:37, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

From my experience in Spanish election articles, TIE can work well with up to 9 (though up to 6, i.e. two rows rather than three, should be preferred). Also, don't think of this as if "people should keep an open mind on this", as if TILE was actually required... you know: for years, this mentality by a few users (that somehow TILE was destined to become "the new standard") is what has brought us here in the first place. It is what has brought weird (and perhaps undesirable) results such as 2022 Philippine House of Representatives elections. Don't force it. If there is an actual need for it, it will naturally come through in those cases where it is needed. And as I say, there is room for even using some combinations of both in those cases where such a need is required. Impru20^talk 19:26, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

3×3 photos using TIE is a lot. We don't do that redudancy on other infoboxes. How many screens would that be? Imagine in the Philippines House of Representatives, you'd have 8 parties that had more than 1% of the vote in the FPTP election, then another infobox for the partylist election with 29 parties that won 1%. Imagine that on TIE. The article previously used TIE, with just the FPTP election, with I guess top 6 parties with make believe leaders that I made up. The partylist election was not in the infobox. That fails in so many metrics lol. The Philippines example is an extreme one though and if you have better ideas, I'm all ears. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:19, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I am not saying necessarily using 3x3 with TIE. I actually said 3x2 is preferable. Cases using 3x3 are rarer, since countries in which more than 6 parties/blocs can be considered as "major" are not that common. For those cases where this may pose a issue: analyze it case-by-case. Impru20^talk 20:43, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Even 3×2 is a lot. Does the MOS recommend showing three different photos on one row in such a small space? That's too much info crammed into 300px. Even if we'd ditch portraits, three columns crammed into 300px is a lot it leads to the infobox being wider. You'd think 55 entries is nuts, wait until you see infoboxes actually being wider than the space alloted for prose on some computer monitors. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:21, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, that has been commonplace in election Wikipedia for many years and has seen (far) less conflicts and edit warrings than those caused by the imposing of TILE across many articles in the last few years. We don't have "to wait", we are two decades ahead of time to see how each one has worked and has been met by the community as a whole. TILE may be the personal preference of some, but it's still as of currently an unfriendly template that requires improvements (plus, the MOS does not require us to copy-paste the results table as the infobox with over 50 parties, either, yet some people think it's like a good idea). Personal preferences aside, but obviously this should come down to what is best for each country according to their specific circumstances. Many will probably stick to TIE, others may feel TIE is preferable. And this can only be ascertained case-by-case. Impru20^talk 21:01, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Do you actually have a suggestion on how to cram to an infobox an election where 55 parties won but the top 10 parties won just 20% of the seats? Even a 3×3 TIE won't fit the ten. Previously the partylist election was not even added to the infobox.

One of my favorite discussions to read through is on that one Canadian election where people wanted to add a party that won 5% of the vote but no seats on a TIE infobox. There was an RFC and consensus was to exclude but it still remained there for some reason. Apparently if this was TILE that party won't be in the infobox at all as the threshold is 1 seat. TIE works in some areas, TILE works in others but apparently if an election allows more than 10 parties to win several seats you're screwed lol. Howard the Duck (talk) 21:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I thought "case-by-case" would be descriptive enough by itself. Impru20^talk 21:42, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I was actually looking for concrete suggestions... I went with just lumping the smaller parties into "others". Howard the Duck (talk) 21:48, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

The first six parties amount to 65% of the seats between them all, and there is a stark difference between the 5th/6th scoring party and 7th and below. I have checked for past elections and this seems like a pattern: no more than 4 to 6 "big" parties, then the rest being tiny 1 or 2-seat strong parties or candidates. I am sure one could defend a case for TIE there, though I also think that this would be one of those examples where TILE could work: just not with all the parties, obviously. Lumping smaller parties into "others" could be a solution for this one. Impru20^talk 22:00, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Since 2010, in the FPTP election, there had always been 6 bigger parties, with the smaller parties winning about 20 or so seats combined. 2022 is unique as the best performing party won just 22% of the vote, and the smaller parties doubled the number of their seats as many candidates ran on local parties instead of national ones (that also led to the best party getting just 22% of the vote). Personally, TIE works if there are actual party leaders. In these elections, there are no such "leaders" and campaigning is district-by-district so there's no incentive of using TIE with a photo of what could be WP:OR as the party leader during the election.

In the partylist election, 2022 saw the smallest number of parties croasing the 2% threshold. From 2010 to 2019 there were always more than 6 of them. Pretty weird though Others had 51% of the vote and 50 seats. Howard the Duck (talk) 22:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Seems sensible to me (particularly the point in which in these Philippine elections there are no "leaders" and their addition would cause OR issues). Impru20^talk 09:43, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2024 Oregon House of Representatives election#Requested move 10 June 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2024 Oregon House of Representatives election#Requested move 10 June 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 14:57, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Guidelines for party inclusion and the choice of infobox style

This RfC is a continuation of the discussion regarding the 2015 UK general election and the question on which parties to include in that page's infobox. For some context, there has been a longstanding debate on whether UKIP - which received a seat and was the third most voted for party - should be listed. Currently, the consensus from the most recent RfC on the topic is to not include UKIP, but the inherent controversial nature of this decision has meant that debates and occasional edit-wars have sprouted up in the years since, with no full resolution in sight.

This RfC is hopefully an attempt to solve this controversy and to provide more clarity to the longstanding 5% rule guideline surrounding election infoboxes.

The main questions to be discussed are:

• What criteria, hard or soft, should be met by parties to be included in an infobox? This includes having >5% of the popular vote, earning a parliamentary seat, media noteworthiness, etc. Along with this, are there times that a party meeting some or all of these criteria should not be included in the infobox? If so, why, and when?

• Should the 5% rule, or some approximation of it, be applied to parliamentary elections? There has been discussion held on this topic in 2021 and 2023, but no formal consensus on whether it should actually apply in some form, either weakly or strongly, to parliamentary election infoboxes has occurred.

• How should the choice between the {{Infobox election}} and {{Infobox legislative election}} templates be made? Should it be contingent on >9 parties meeting all the criteria listed above, or should it be more dependent on local conditions? There are inconsistencies between countries - and even between different elections of the same country - on the infobox style used, so it would be valuable to have this issue more formally clairfied.

AwesomeSaucer9 (talk) 23:14, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

AwesomeSaucer: A few things. Firstly this is far too long and ambiguous a question for an RFC. See the guidelines at WP:RFC, where a clear question with specific outcomes needs to be set. Secondly this not formatted as an RFC, which requires specific copy to be included to generate the RFC id and populate it at the relevant noticeboards. Thirdly, the 5% rule is not applied as a standard to parliamentary elections. Fourthly, and most importantly, if you wish to hold an RFC on this topic at this central location, where it would be perceived as seeking to apply to all FPTP elections (and thus affecting election articles in some 40-plus countries, including the United States), it will require more input to determine agreed options before opening. Cambial — foliar❧ 23:27, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for the improper formatting. It has been fixed.

I don't disagree that specific options are important, but I'm unsure where it would be best to discuss & formulate them. Options have been laid out in the 2015 UK general election talk page, but these are specific to the context of that election, and don't necessarily apply site-wide. AwesomeSaucer9 (talk) 23:33, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

no apology needed, I'm just pointing out that without specific outcomes/options, participants cannot !vote, so it will simply be a discussion. Nothing wrong with that - in fact a central discussion will be needed before starting a central RFC. The earlier polls you link to establish that different principles may apply to parliamentary elections and 5%R should not be strictly implemented for parliamentary elections: that doesn't establish it as a standard.

I recommend withdrawing the RFC for the mean time until we have a wording which is clear in its proposal. Cambial — foliar❧ 23:43, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

My observations would be the following:

• The 5% rule cannot be immediately applied to parliamentary elections where multiple seats are at stake, and many parties may end up winning seats. At best it can serve as a rule of thumb, but it should not be seen as a strict rule.
• The criteria for including a party in a parliamentary election will have to differ from country to country. The most general rule I think you could have, would be that a party winning seats likely is notable enough to be included in the infobox. This rule may be applied for a lot of countries, but it probably won't work for the UK.
• Where a party wins at least 5% of seats in a parliamentary election, that party should be included in the infobox unless there is a local consensus for not doing that.
• Where a party wins 5% of the vote, but wins a number of seats less than that (a situation especially relevant for countries using FPTP), its inclusion in the infobox depends on the concrete article. The way the party is covered in reliable sources is especially important to determine whether the party is notable enough to include. The convention for similar articles for that country also matters. If the media treats the party as being essentially irrelevant, it probably should not be included. Whereas if the media treats the party as a "main" contender, it probably should be included. In the case of the 2015 United Kingdom general election I think the most correct approach is to include UKIP. The party received extensive coverage in the media and was treated on the same level as the Lib Dems and the SNP - two parties that are included in the infobox and received fewer votes than UKIP. With that being said, I think you can argue against UKIP's inclusion, and any rule determined here should not overrule a local consensus on that page.

When it comes to which infobox format to be used:

• There should not be a general rule on this. That said, it would be preferable to use the same format for the same series of articles.
• For countries where 6 or fewer parties normally win seats, TIE should typically be used.
• For countries where more than 9 parties normally win seats, TILE should typically be used. This should not neccesarily be followed strictly though.
• For elections where the overwhelming majority of seats are won by the largest 4-6 parties, TIE may be more suitable even if more than 9 parties win seats. UK elections are a good example of this. As are other parliamentary elections using single-member constituencies. In other words, minor parties winning very few seats may be ignored unless there otherwise are compelling reasons to include them.

Gust Justice (talk) 23:57, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I don't think it is sensible to set a rule for percentage-based inclusion for parliamentary infoboxes due to the differences in electoral systems. In some countries you might get multiple parties with over 5% of the vote with no seats (five parties in the 2002 Turkish general election). I get the feeling this is only being brought up because of the UKIP situation in 2015.

Re the type of infobox, I agree with the first three of Gust's points above, but I think the last ("elections where the overwhelming majority of seats are won by the largest 4-6 parties") will lead to too much debate over what "overwhelming majority" means.

One point to note is that we are hamstrung by {{Infobox election}} being in rows of three parties – for example, it doesn't really make any sense (to me) that Plaid Cymru is excluded from 2017 United Kingdom general election, and I assume they have been purely because adding another row would be awkward. IMO there needs to be some fundamental consideration given to redesigning the infobox to work on a one party per row basis like those in Spanish/French wikis, which would hopefully avoid the inclusion criteria being partly determined by the design of the infobox. Number 57 01:23, 30 June 2024 (UTC)