UPDATED in two key spots below.
Election geeks, you are in luck. For the second time, Google plans to offer free, real-time election results, allowing anyone to tinker and play with hard-to-get voting numbers.
It's for the Nevada Republican caucuses this Saturday, February 4, and even if you have no connection to Nevada, it's a chance to experiment with live results like the Big Guys. Make a map. Mash up some data. Have fun.
The first time Google did this, we made this Iowa caucuses results map at WNYC, mashing up Patchwork Nation community types with the live vote tally. And since we've been through it once, I've got some tips and tricks for making your own project.
My only request: Send me a link to whatever you make. I'd love to see it.
Setting the Fusion Table
Updated: The Google folks are providing live tallies from the Nevada GOP in two Fusion Tables -- one by county and one by precinct -- which will be updated with new data throughout the evening.
This means means you get all of the functionality of those tables, including simple charts and cool maps. Check out these posts to get started with Fusion Tables, if you're not already familiar.
Urge to Merge
My favorite part of Fusion Tables is that you can easily merge (or join, in SQL-speak) two separate tables of data. In this case, you'll be able to merge any data organized by Nevada's 17 counties (one's actually an independent city). Unemployment figures, Social Security recipients and any U.S. Census designation you can think of are just a few of the possibilities.
Updated 11:39 a.m. 2/2/2012: This section originally talked about merging on the county's unique FIPS code -- which turns out to be tricky, since the results table doesn't have those codes. But if your data has the Nevada county names, you can merge using the name as the key (provided they are identical lists in both tables). Or you can add the county names to your data by adding a column and entering them by hand.
For reference, or to map the shapes of the Nevada counties, you can use this table I built merging data from the U.S. Census (which calls the FIPS codes "GEOID10") and the live election data.
No matter how you do it, once merged, you'll end up with a larger table containing all of your mashup data -- unemployment, number of children, etc. -- lined up next to the live vote data. Even though it's a new table, it'll update in real time with the underlying vote table.
Welcome, Json
If you're a JavaScripter, it is super easy to get the data you want from Google's results table, or a merged table you built with it.
First, construct a query url according to the Google Fusion Tables documentation. This can be a little tricky, but with some tinkering you can make it work. Be sure to encode commas, greater-than signs and other symbols. Here's a nifty URL encoder if you need to convert all or part of the URL. Also, surround with single-quotes any column name containing dashes, such as 'VoteCount-Paul'.
For a simple example, take a peek at this "shoes" table. Then try this URL:
A little decryption here: The + signs are spaces, and the %2C codes are commas. The table number we're looking at is 274409. So the syntax is "SELECT Product, Inventory FROM 274409." Append &jsonCallback=foo and you get back JSON. If you're using a jQuery AJAX call, as you'll see below, make it &jsonCallback=?
You should get a text file that looks like this:
foo({"table":{"cols":["Product","Inventory"],"rows":[["Amber Bead",1.251500558E9],["Black Shoes",356],["White Shoes",100]]}})
Voila! JSON.
To get the statewide total for Iowa, I made a crazylong URL that requests sums of the columns I wanted.
Pro-tip: If you try sorting the data within Fusion Tables using Options->Filter or Options->Aggregate the "query" you're using appears above the results. Use that to help form the URL after the query?sql= part.
Inside the JavaScript map application, I used jQuery's $.getJSON() function to hit that URL and load in the data, and setTimeout() to do it every two minutes. You can see and use the code here.
Try and Learn
If you've ever dreamed of making your own election-night results map, or just like the thrill of a new challenge, don't let this opportunity pass you by. It's lucky that we get a chance to play with free, live and well-structured voting information. And no matter what you learn in the process, I bet it'll be valuable down the road.
Maybe even in November.
As always, don't hesitate to contact me -- or post a comment -- with questions, clarifications and ideas. And if you're inspired to make something for Nevada's primary, definitely drop me a note and a link!
[ Map detail: Patchwork Nation - Votes for Barak Obama in 2008, by county ]