Jo Wood, Professor of Visual Analytics at City St George’s will reveal how his analysis of voting patterns across London in May’s council elections highlighted a bias, based on where candidates were located on the ballot paper.
Voters could pick three candidates from the list, and most of the major parties, fielded three candidates. Jo’s data visualization reveals that, where people chose to split their vote, they tended to pick candidates nearer the top of the ballot paper. The visualization excluded parties that fielded fewer than three candidates.
Professor Wood’s analysis of the London council elections was written up on the front page of The Guardian newspaper. Jo originally published his analysis on Bluesky on 11 May. The Guardian’s article from 13 May, Easy as ABC: voters in England tend to pick names nearer top of ballot, data suggests, included interviews with two candidates, one of whom failed to secure a seat (and had the last name, Zhong), and the other who won (and had the last name, Adams).
This seminar forms part of London Data Week. Friday's events are being hosted by Diverse CDT in the College Building. For these and other events, please see the London Data Week website.
About the Presenter
Professor Jo Wood has been creating maps and data visualization for over 30 years.
He is motivated by building and designing novel visualization that demonstrate creativity and utility and that bridge different disciplinary traditions. He has particular interest in new ways of showing data with geographic elements and ways of incorporating storytelling and reasoning in visualization design.
Jo is author of several widely used software packages for creating and designing visualization. He is a designer of the ‘literate visualization’ notebook approach that forms a key role in Diverse CDT by helping people structure and reflect upon the visualization process.
About Diverse CDT
The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Diversity in Data Visualization (Diverse CDT) is a pioneering, fully funded four-year PhD programme jointly delivered by City St George’s, University of London and the University of Warwick.
Its mission is to train the next generation of researchers to design, develop, and evaluate inclusive, impactful, and socially responsible data visualizations that address real-world challenges.
Diverse CDT brings together world-leading expertise in data science, human-computer interaction, visual design, user experience, and accessibility, alongside cutting-edge domain knowledge in health, social sciences, and beyond.
About London Data Week
London Data Week is a free, annual citywide festival of data at which participants can learn, discuss and explore how to use data to shape our capital city for the better.
There is huge potential for data to help tackle major issues, such as the cost-of-living crisis and public health emergencies, but many of these solutions require public trust and support. We believe that the most effective and inclusive way to earn this is through engaging with communities.
We set out on a mission to find a way to not only bring London’s residents into the fold, but the organisations, community groups and public institutions that are already driving changes and creating impact on the ground.
Related Centres
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