Entry for Election Results / Norway

This is a discussion about the submission for Election Results / Norway.

I’m representing the Norwegian Directorate of Election, which is the official provider of the Norwegian election data you have reviewed. I have some comments regarding the review results.

B3: It is incorrect that Norwegian election data are not available at polling station level. Polling station is the lowest level when navigating the data on our webpage valgresultat.no. In our Excel-based export file of election results (which has had this permanent URL since the election was finished, as far as I know), the name of the polling place is in column F. The comment on the fact that some Norwegian election boards by law have to combine some polling districts when each has less than 100 elegible voters, only applies to a few, and does not take away from the fact that data on polling station level in general is published.

B5: The link to the Excel spreadsheet above also proves that the data is downloadable at once, contrary to what you’ve stated.

B8: Why is .xlsx not on the list of chosable data formats when .xls is? The former is after all xml-based and readable outside Excel, while xls is a binary format. I can add that we for future elections intend to support other formats, as well as make the API publicly available.

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Thanks so much for this @knutmagnewatne,

This is very interesting, especially with regards to other people’s comments (see here and here).

One main argument is that in regions with low voter numbers polling station data should not be revealed (this is taken as a reason why polling station data is generally inaccessible).

I think it would be very interesting for others to hear too how Norway deals with this issue.

Unfortunately I am unable to see the polling station names on column F. Is it possible that you linked the wrong file? I can see Fylkesnavn and Kommunenavn.

Yes, we will update the list of formats, this is a good point you mentioned!

All the best
Danny

No, it is the correct file, but I forgot to point attention to the correct sheets. Unfortunately the Excel spreadsheet files are not using the language selected on the webpage, but is currently only in Norwegian. The file from 2015 has four tabs:

Fylkestingsvalg pr kommune = County authority election per municipality
Fylkestingsvalg pr krets = County authority elecftion per polling district
Kommunestyrevalg pr kommune = Municipal council election per municipality
Kommunestyrevalg pr krets = Municipal council election per polling district

I.e. the second and fourth tab show results for each polling district, where column F “Kretsnavn” = Polling district name. It should then be evident that data is available for the great majority of polling places.

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Dear @knutmagnewatne,

Thank you so much for the explanations, we checked it again and it complies. I will change the score accordingly. Can you send me the website where the data is stored so I can see the terms of use and how quickly the data is updated?

All the best
Danny