Data is Awesome: DC Early Voting Numbers

[Image courtesy of the Washington Post]

Mike DeBonis of the Post had a fantastic blog post on Monday afternoon looking deep into the numbers coming out of the District of Columbia’s recent early voting period.

DeBonis generated (his own!) terrific series of graphics (one example above) using data generated by the DC Board of Elections and Ethics (DCBOEE). The data reveals how early voting is distributed across the city and suggests how participation is driven by candidate- and campaign-specific factors.

It’s also a fantastic example of how an election office (with the help of a friendly neighborhood election geek) can generate data and count on someone not on the payroll – in this case, a member of the media – to get the story out there.

Sometimes in this field it’s too easy to focus on the negative – or talk about what needs to be – but this story (and the data behind it) is the kind of thing that just makes me happy for the future of elections.

Kudos all around.