Voting Patterns at the 2004 Australia Federal Election On Line

 

 Functionalities:

Zoom In, Zoom Out and Pan are functionalities that allow navigation around the Australia map. These three options centre the map at the point where a user left clicks with the mouse and change the map extent. Please wait about five seconds before another click.

Classification is a functionality that classifies data using Equal Interval, Quantile, Natural Breaks or Location Quotient (LQ) approaches for making graduated colour or symbol maps in about five seconds.

 

The equal interval classifies the features into equally divided ranges of attributes values. In the quantile classification, each class contains approximately the same number of features. The natural breaks approach is a median based natural breaks classification that optimises attribute similarity.

 

The LQ approach pre-determines the classes of LQ data into several groups such as:

 0.49 and below (51% or more below national benchmark),

 0.50 - 0.79 (21 to 50% below national benchmark),

 0.80 - 0.89 (11 to 20% below national benchmark),

 0.90 - 0.94 (6 to 10% below national benchmark),

 0.95 - 0.99 (1 to 5% below national benchmark),

 1.00 - 1.05 (0 to 5% above national benchmark),

 1.06 - 1.10 (6 to 10% above national benchmark),

 1.11 - 1.20 (11 to 20% above national benchmark),

 1.21 - 1.50 (21 to 50% above national benchmark), and

 1.51 and above (51% or more above national benchmark).

 

The classification functionality is useful to show the pattern and benchmark of voting outcomes.

 

     TWGV: total within group variance.

     TWGD: total within group difference.
 

When users select the Classification option, they then are presented with one drop down menu. If they select quotient variables from this drop down menus, then a benchmark classification map will be shown. If they select percentage variables, they then are presented with the second, third and fourth drop down menus from which they can select classification methods (Equal interval, Quantile or Natural Breaks) from the second drop down menu, choose whether to calculate TWGV and TWGD or not from the third drop menu, choose the number of classes from the fourth drop down menu, and a classification map will then be shown.

It takes about five seconds to turn the classification off.

When users select the Statistics option, they then are presented with, for example, three drop down menus from which they can select statistical function, dependent variable and independent variable. It may take about ten seconds to get the statistical analysis result ready for display. The Statistics option is under development.
It turns the Statistics function off.

When users select the Area option, they then are presented with one drop down menu from which they can select one of the 5 metro areas, the continent, one state/territory, or one of 150 electoral divisions, and it may take about five seconds to take the user to the selected area.

Displays poll places in the mapped region.
Turn poll places off.
When users select the LabelOn option, they then are presented with one drop down menu from which they can choose to display the name of each poll place or the name of each electoral division. It takes about five seconds to display the labels on the map.
It takes about five seconds to turn the poll place and/or electoral division names off.
It takes about five seconds to display the primary and secondary roads of the 1:1 million scale main road layer available from the Geoscience Australia.
It takes about five seconds to turn the primary and secondary roads off.
It takes about five seconds to display the full extent of the map.
It takes about five seconds to take the user back to the opening page. It is recommended that the user click on Restart button to go back to the opening page if the map display confuses the user.

Example of using classification functionality

1.  Left click your mouse on the Area button.

2.  Select one of the metropolitan areas or one of the 150 electoral divisions and wait for about 5 seconds.

3.  Left click your mouse on the PollBooth On button in order to display poll places on the map.

4.  Left click your mouse on the Classification button. When you select the Classification option, you then are presented with one drop down menus.

    1) If you select location quotient (LQ) variables from this drop down menus, then a benchmark classification map will be shown.

    2) If you select percentage variables, you then are presented with the second, third and fourth drop down menus from which you can select classification methods (Equal interval, Quantile or Natural Breaks) from the second drop down menu, choose whether to calculate TWGV and TWGD or not from the third drop menu, choose the number of classes from the fourth drop down menu, and a classification map of poll places will then be shown.  It takes about 10 seconds to display the Natural Breaks classification map and about 12 seconds to display the classification map with TWGV and TWGD.

    3) If you select booth catchment variables, you then are presented with the second, third and fourth drop down menus from which you can select classification methods (Equal interval, Quantile or Natural Breaks) from the second drop down menu, choose whether to calculate TWGV and TWGD or not from the third drop menu, choose the number of classes from the fourth drop down menu, and a classification map of booth catchments will then be shown.  It takes about 10 seconds to display the Natural Breaks classification map and about 12 seconds to display the classification map with TWGV and TWGD.

5.  Left click your mouse on the Label on button and then select to display the name of each poll place from a drop down menu.

6.  Left click your mouse on the Zoom in radial and then click on the map in order to change the map extent, wait for about 5 seconds and left click your mouse on the map again if necessary until you can read the name of each poll place.

7.  Left click your mouse on the Pan radial.

8.  Move cursor to the map. Left click and hold your mouse and then you can drag the map around. Release the mouse and wait for about 5 seconds and you will be able to see the change of map extent.

9.  Left click your mouse on the Australia button to display the full extent of the map.

10. Left click your mouse on the Restart button to take you back to the opening page if the map display confuses you.