Template talk:Infobox election

RFC: Should elections include equal-ranked ballots in calculating vote shares?
Should elections include equal-ranked and truncated ballots when calculating vote shares? For example, should ballots marked A = B > C be included in calculating the vote share for A against B? Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:04, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Support - Yes
 * Oppose - No


 * Support. The convention in the social choice literature on this topic is very clear: equal-ranked ballots need to be included, because they can affect the outcome of the election. This is particularly important for paired counting methods, because equal-ranking indicates indifference (which dilutes the margin of victory). Even for systems where equal-ranking two candidates does not affect the results, users should know what share of ballots were exhausted or ranked several candidates as tied. It is easy to calculate what the results of the election would have been if equal ranks were excluded, but not vice-versa. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:14, 11 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose for now on the basis that you've not explained adequately what you are seeking to do. I've read your comments at WT:E&R several times and I am still none the wiser to what the issue is here. Number   5  7  19:47, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to find consensus on a consistent standard for reporting ranked-choice voting results.
 * As an example, let's take the article on the 2011 Irish presidential election. The infobox says the "final round result" was 56.8% of the vote for Michael Higgins, against 35.5% of the vote for Sean Gallagher. These don't add up to 100%, because some voters have ballots that look like this:
 * Mitchell
 * McGuiness
 * All other candidates (equal)
 * "Any other candidate" votes make up the last 8%. The question is whether an infobox reporting "final round results" should include "all other candidates," or whether these votes should be excluded.
 * Currently, there is no standard, and infoboxes are inconsistent across articles. For example, 2009 Burlington mayoral election uses the opposite convention. "All other candidates" are 6.7% of votes, but these are discarded to report the margin as 51.5% to 48.5%, instead of as 48% to 45.2%.
 * This allows unscrupulous editors to manipulate the apparent margin of victory: a Purple party supporter might report an election they lost as having a margin of 30% to 20%, with 50% of voters being apathetic between the two (an unconvincing victory). Elsewhere, they could report the same election results, but with Purple as the winner, by saying Purple had 60% of the final-round vote. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 21:24, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * So, do you just mean we should stick to reporting first preference votes for STV/AV/SV elections? Bondegezou (talk) 06:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm saying that in every round or matchup, the vote share should be equal to the number of votes for a candidate, divided by the total number of ballots (including those that, in the final round, show no further preferences). This is because those ballots can still affect the outcome under many voting systems. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 07:12, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I suggest we should follow standard practice by reliable sources, and that these may vary from context to context., can you show some examples in RS of what you want done? Bondegezou (talk) 12:12, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
 * RS? Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 16:46, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There's not really a standard practice from reliable sources for this, because both numbers are correct; they just measure different things. The only time this causes a problem is when vote totals are inconsistent across infoboxes on Wikipedia, because excluding truncated ballots from some totals but not others leaves the door open for biases and confusion. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:32, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I think consistency in a series of articles about elections in the same place makes sense. I don’t think there’s a particular need for how we report Maltese elections to match how we report Australian elections if RS about the former do one thing and RS about the latter do another. I think instead of this very generic RfC, that most editors appear to be struggling to follow given the lack of activity in it, it would be more useful to examine specific cases. Bondegezou (talk) 12:55, 15 March 2024 (UTC)


 * It's more that the reliable sources differ between media sources and academic sources. Journalists reporting election results tend to drop these kinds of ballots. Academic sources (scientific journals) consistently include them.
 * By the way, I should note that this is actually an extremely that's created no fewer than 6 edit wars and I'm utterly sick and tired of it. I'm describing this policy as vaguely and generically as possible, without mentioning any specifics or specific articles, because if I don't it'll probably start a flame war and the entire debate will fall back on partisan lines. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:34, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Strange output
I modified the last edit because articles like this one were picking up the unnamed parameters and using them for the flag. removing these unnamed parameters fix the strange Template:Country data independent at the top, but then left a blank row at the top. this is because if country is in the template but blank, then the #ifexist check still picks up Template:Country data which is a valid template. I put the "check for blank" back around this line and now it looks fine in both cases. Frietjes (talk) 15:32, 15 March 2024 (UTC) PAGE ]]) 19:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Talking of strange outputs, can anyone work out why the colour bar of the presidential election section of this infobox is so wide? It isn't an issue on other infoboxes arranged in the same way... Cheers, Number   5  7  16:41, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Seem to happen when "candidate1" is used, and not when it's "nominee1". --Aréat (talk) 16:57, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Can someone revert to last clean ASAP, strange things are still showing up in i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_United_States_presidential_election_in_Nebraska DemocraticLuntz (talk) 18:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The code seem to malfunction and data that should not be visible in GUI output seems to be visible and the information does not seem to be contained in designated area, I don't know what has happened perhaps some kind of new regulations imposed on templates can not put up with the actuality in programming scale. Cactus Ronin (talk) 18:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The "alliance" parameter outputs "parameter 1 should be a party name." if nothing is entered now. HapHaxion (talk / contribs) 18:06, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * can you fix what broke with your changes? Frietjes (talk) 18:29, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * the blank row is still at the top of 2012 World Bank Group presidential election caused by the bad logic for country being blank and 1918 Portuguese general election still has a large red error saying parameter 1 should be a party name., ... which is coming from Module:Political party get bad input this error was caused by [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3AInfobox_election%2Fshortname&diff=1213879348&oldid=1212791442 this change] which broke another blank input case. Frietjes (talk) 18:42, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I have fixed the big red error with a partial revert of the /shortname template. I added a new test case to show the error. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:26, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Jonesey95, that helps. we still have 2024 Portuguese legislative election linking to "none" which is a disambiguation page, but at least no red errors. Frietjes (talk) 19:33, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Jonesey95@Frietjes Thanks for adding the test case. I added an additional check for country being blank. --Ahecht ([[User talk:Ahecht|TALK
 * Re the test case, do we know why using candidate and nominee do different things to the width of the colour bar? And also what is happening with the previous/next election links (why are they spilling off the edge of the infobox?). Cheers, Number   5  7  22:49, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Also, can people remember to use the sandbox to test stuff, rather than risk breaking tens of thousands of articles... Number   5  7  22:51, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

TemplateStyles revert
Hi @Number 57 in this revert you wrote

''This has messed up thousands of articles. Please test this kind of stuff in the sandbox first''

FWIW I tested this on a local MediaWiki instance so please don't assume I didn't test this, but could you expand on what exactly broke? It looked fine to me on the testcases after I made the change - and it is a minor change that is only adding CSS.

The template is currently problematic as it is exhibiting bias, so I'm keen to understand what problem you are seeing with the two rules of CSS I added so I'm keen to fix it ASAP.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2024_London_mayoral_election#c-Jdlrobson-20240418225000-Bazza_7-20240418165000

Thanks in advance for your quick answer! 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 23:25, 18 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I loaded it into sandbox per your request and I'm not seeing anything obvious on Template:Infobox election/testcases - what am I missing? 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 23:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The initial edit you made to the infobox caused the images to be compressed horizontally. For example, the images at 2024 United States presidential election stayed the same height, but were compressed to about a third of their original width.
 * I'm not sure what you've done this time, but it causes the images to be really small (I think 80x80px) but also stretches the infobox to twice as wide as it should be.
 * Annoyingly I can't show this side-by-side, as if you put the two versions on the same page, the style from the sandbox interferes with the main version. However, compare User:Number 57/sandbox 3 (normal infobox with default size of 150x150px) with User:Number 57/sandbox 4 (sandbox) and you'll see what I mean.
 * Perhaps you are doing this from a mobile device which is why you can't see the effect it is having? Number   5  7  23:56, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes this was the intention of the change. It should aplly to Minerva but not Vector. Why do you consider that broken? Without this all the infoboxes are clipped by default on mobile and every candidate other than the first requires scrolling to view.
 * i was editing from a desktop device and testing both mobile and desktop experiences
 * What skin are you using? 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 01:13, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * and  show differences for me in desktop mode. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:45, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, did you mean to fix the image to 80x80px? It's far too small on a computer screen. I am using Monobook btw. Cheers, Number   5  7  10:18, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Okay I didn't realize we optimized templates for Monobook and Timeless. When reporting "breakage" it's helpful to know straight away if you are using non-default skin and specifically what you mean by breakage (my understanding of breakage is the page doesn't render at all).
 * I've updated the styles to not apply to Monobook and Timeless, I always forget they are responsive.
 * The behaviour for Minerva is expected - 80x80 is selected as typically a mobile browser will be upwards of 320px and assuming at least 3 candidates (plus the heading row) 80*4 = 320. On Minerva infoboxes are capped to 300px so they should probably be smaller but that didn't. I think we could go up to 100px if we wanted since typically the majority of devices these days are 400px. Feel free to increase to 100px in the styles in Template:Infobox_election/styles.css if you feel like that makes a better compromise.
 * I think ideally, we'd switch to a row based layout on lower resolution devices, and stack these vertically rather than horizontally but that seems like a larger change that might require change to the HTML or more drastic changes to the CSS? 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 15:41, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree that a switch to a fully vertically stacked layout (akin to the es and fr.wiki infoboxes) would make sense and make the infobox more flexible. Number   5  7  18:50, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Request for IRV infobox
Right now IRV infoboxes like 2009 Burlington, Vermont mayoral election are kind of hacked-together. It’d be nice to have a template to reproduce that with fewer manual inputs! (cc @Number 57) –Sincerely, A Lime 17:55, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to change numbers up to ten
Hello. For the 2024 Cork City Council election page, ten parties/independent parties can be shown as gaining/losing seats from the previous 2019 Cork City Council election - for either losing all their seats, or gaining seats as a new party. As the box only can show nine parties, this unfortunately means that not every party/non-party elected/unelected can be shown in the box. It would be a great benefit if all ten figures could be in the box, which is why I would propose to increase it to ten. Lucky102 (talk) 02:28, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This template gets ridiculously large with that many parties. What about just switching to Template:Infobox legislative election? Bondegezou (talk) 06:54, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Ten wouldn't really make sense as the infobox works in rows of three. But it's already too big once it goes beyond one row, so I echo the comments above about using Infobox legislative election instead. Number   5  7  21:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I always feel like the legislative election infobox is too sparse for 6-9 candidates, but the current infobox can't handle more than 3 candidates well. Have we ever tried borrowing the infobox from non-English Wikipedias? Example in Spanish. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 02:54, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

New format?
Hi there. Just want to ask if there's a new format of the infobox in the making. Went to a few election pages and there was a new format, but with the images displaced and with things not within the lines of the box, making it look disorganized and disproportionate.Tuesp1985 (talk) 21:44, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * , where did you see this happening? Primefac (talk) 21:57, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm seeing this now on all the election pages with infoboxes. But, for example, the 2024 European Parliament election in Ireland.Tuesp1985 (talk) 22:01, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Are you seeing the same thing at ? Everything looks normal/okay to me. Primefac (talk) 22:04, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, the format looks different, with the images floating, in some cases with their sizes tampered, and a lot of spacing between the lines, which makes the infobox disproportionate. When I posted the topic, the template still had the former format, but it has now changed, with the US election example being weird.Tuesp1985 (talk) 22:09, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, neither the template nor its .css have been changed recently, so I suspect it's probably a WP:THURSDAY issue or a browser issue. Primefac (talk) 22:14, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * A browser issue I don't think it is, as on Mozilla and Chrome I'm seeing the same issue. Maybe it's WP:THURSDAY issue, like you said. But, are you seeing now the changes?Tuesp1985 (talk) 22:17, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * All looks fine and normal to me; I'm using the legacy Vector, which got some major overhauls a week or so ago (they're rolling out the updates to the various skins). Primefac (talk) 22:22, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I also noticed the same thing on the U.S. election pages on my phone (desktop site). Prcc27 (talk) 23:24, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This is apparently an unintended effect of a code change deployed today. It is being discussed at VPT in a multi-header thread. Bug reports have been filed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:24, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Right, I've read the VPT threads and yeah reports have been filed. Let's see if the matter is resolved. Thanks for the info Jonesey95.Tuesp1985 (talk) 01:39, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Some issues seem to have been resolved, however image sizes, in some infoboxes, and a few glitches persist.Tuesp1985 (talk) 22:47, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Please provide links to a couple of affected articles. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:46, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Some examples are 2013 Christchurch mayoral election and 2022 Tauranga by-election where the candidate images size shrunk to a very small size compared to pre-update. Kiwichris (talk) 06:06, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Both of those look fine to me. I gave them a null edit in case a caching problem was manifesting on your end. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:22, 17 June 2024 (UTC)