Going the last mile

# Going the last mile
## of open election returns in France
### Joël Gombin, Datactivist
### OKFN DPI, 2023-11-08

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### France has a first-class electoral data-collection process

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[![](https://www.unehistoireduconflitpolitique.fr/images/book.png)](https://www.unehistoireduconflitpolitique.fr/)
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### France has a first-class electoral data-collection process

Data are:
- reliable
- exhaustive
- open
- free
- timely 
- fine-grained (36k *communes*, 70k *bureaux de vote* (voting stations))

And we have nice, long time-series ([*communes* since 1992, *bureaux de vote* since 2002](https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/pages/donnees-des-elections/)).

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### And now we have voting stations-level geographical data

[![](./img/bv.png)](https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/bureaux-de-vote-et-adresses-de-leurs-electeurs/)

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### However it is very hard to use these data

- The data are not available in a single place
- The data are not available in a single format (and the format is [very often not truly machine-readable](https://github.com/joelgombin/lireMininterieur))
- the geographical units change over time (see [COGugaison](https://github.com/antuki/COGugaison))
- there is no univocal way of describing candidates and parties - which also change a lot over time

Therefore, it is a lot of work to use these data, for a one-off analysis and even more for longitudinal analyses.

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### We need a modern way of publishing these data

- A single place to find the data
- both batch files and API
- semantic data? (linked to Wikidata for example)

**Not a project (yet?)... but something I've been thinking about for years.**

**Interested?**

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# Thank you!

Contact : [joel@datactivist.coop](mailto:joel@datactivist.coop)