Make your own general election data graphics
How to make hex maps, beeswarms and more for the 2019 UK general election
Calling all UK journalists, policy nerds, armchair analysts, and fans of meaningful electoral data visualisation! If you’re looking for an easy way to make interactive maps and charts for the forthcoming general election, this post is for you.
We have a whole new set of Flourish maps and charts – packed with juicy, fresh UK constituency data – that you can customise and use in your own pages and posts.
Best of all, it’s free, and you don’t need any developers.
1. Make a constituency hexmap
Our hexmap of UK constituencies is the best way to display constituency-level metrics. The version below is pre-loaded with a bunch of public election data, compiled by the amazing Alasdair Rae.
Hover over a hexagon to see the data for that constituency, including the last general election result, previous turnout, and the EU Referendum vote. Follow the link below the map to get your own.
Use the standard Flourish settings to customise the information in the popups, change the colouring of the map (e.g. colour by Leave vote), and embed it on your own site. We just ask that you keep the data attributions in the footer.
But what if you’d like to add different data to the map? Say, polling data by constituency?
2. It’s easy to add your own data
Flourish makes it easy to add your own data to a map, with our “merge data” feature.
First, make sure the poll data you want to add has one row per constituency and includes a constituency code column. (These are long strings like “E14000530”.)
Then, in Flourish, click “Import your data”. Choose the “Merge with current sheet” option, and select the constituency code column in both spreadsheets.
This will magically merge in your data as new columns, and you will now be able to do things like colour by predicted outcome, or add predicted vote to the popups.
If your data doesn’t have constituency codes, you can try merging on constituency name, but you may need to add some rows manually, since constituencies aren’t always spelled the same way.
Looking for interesting data to map? The House of Commons Library’s Sources of Constituency Statistics is what it says on the tin: a list of public datasets available at constituency level.
3. Try the standard constituency map, too
Hexmaps are great because they give equal visual weighting to each region, ensuring small city consituencies aren’t hidden. But sometimes you just want a standard map.
So here’s the UK constituency map. It’s got all the same data, and you can customise it in just the same way.
4. Switch to scatter charts for extra insight
Meanwhile, what if you want to plot electoral analyses – like the incredible correlation you’ve just discovered between vote margin and marmalade consumption?
Enter the scatter chart. Like with the maps above, we’ve made a version pre-loaded with electoral data, which you can customise to suit your own needs - here’s just one example. Follow the link below the map to get your own and start experimenting.
The “merge” feature isn’t yet available in this template, but you can just upload your own data. And the Flourish scatter has lots of advanced modes, so you can go crazy with your psephological analysis.
5. The only limit is your imagination
We hope these maps will help you spend less time wrestling with web development code, and more time doing the important work: communicating meaningful insight about the upcoming vote.
As ever, it’s free to get started with Flourish. And if you’re a professional newsroom, you get free access to business features, thanks to our partnership with Google News Lab.
For other electoral visualisation ideas, from poll-tracking to Parliament charts, check out Katie’s post on Ten ways to visualise elections with Flourish.