eiballots 0.2.0-1

This release corrects the microdata and the catalogs after a systematic validation against the certified county results of the Florida Division of Elections and, where available, against official precinct-level returns (Lee, Palm Beach) and the official ballot-position worksheet of Miami-Dade. The .RData files on OSF have been replaced (same file names; OSF keeps the previous versions).

Data: records removed

• Palm Beach: 8 test decks removed (precincts 37, 63, 70, 130, 143, 158, 202 and 226; 60 identical-pattern records each): 447,946 → 447,466 voters. The genuine ballots of these precincts are not in the source files.
• Hillsborough: 6 test decks removed (precincts 103, 143, 363, 357C, 538 and AB29B) and 4 partial re-reads of absentee precincts (AB24, AB42, AB49B, AB80): 356,659 → 355,027 voters.
• Marion: a test deck in precinct 30 removed (646 identical ballots punching 128 of the 171 positions): 105,831 → 105,185 voters.

Data: races corrected

• Hillsborough
  • A02 and A03 were read from empty positions; they now take the votes previously stored as HILRE2 and HILRE3, which are removed.
  • USR30 renamed USR13 (congressional district 13, shared with Sarasota).
  • COC1HIL and COC3HIL (district commission seats) were assigned to the whole county; their universe is now the voters of each district.
  • SHE1: the second position (write-in) is coded O; COC3HIL: Scott (Democrat) is coded D.
• Lee
  • USR14: position mapping shifted by one column; recomputed.
  • SRH72 (which pooled districts 72–75) split into SRH72, SRH73, SRH74 and SRH75 with the official precinct-to-district list.
  • HOS3 and HOS5 (hospital board): read one position too early; recomputed. Candidate totals now equal the certified ones.
  • New race FMSRE (Fort Myers Shores referendum).
• Sarasota
  • State House split into SRH69_70 and SRH71_74.
  • VEN3 label corrected; VEN4 regenerated from its own ballot positions.
• Highlands
  • SC1–SC3 read one position too late; recomputed.
  • Precinct 9 assigned to USR16 (it had no congressional district).
  • LPTRE1 restricted to the Lake Placid precincts (17L, 19L).
• Miami-Dade
  • DADRE2: invalid votes were computed from the DADRE1 positions; recomputed, and its universe restricted to the 24 precincts of the fire and rescue service area.
  • SRH109 and SRH118: positions without a candidate on the regular ballot are no longer counted as votes.
  • SC2: “No” votes of the advance absentee precincts (N401–N466) were read from a wrong position; recomputed.
  • STA11: a position without a candidate is no longer coded O.
  • NBC3 (North Bay Village, Harbor Island): the first candidate is George A. Kane (code Ka), not Broucek.
• Pinellas: LEAC5 did not read candidate Adams; recomputed. Its universe is limited to the Lealman precincts (voter level in split precincts).
• Pasco: USR9, Duffey (Reform) coded O instead of D.
• All counties: voters assigned to two districts of the same family (congressional, State Senate, State House) in split precincts are now assigned to a single district.

Data: races removed (no voters in the source)

AVON, AVRE1 (Highlands), MPRE1, PBSRE1 (Palm Beach), SRH113 and OLRE1 (Miami-Dade).

Catalogs

• 252 → 247 races (400 county-race columns).
• Levels follow the types of government of the U.S. Census of Governments: federal, state, county, municipal, special_district.
• Corrected office texts, candidate names and option lists (e.g. CICJ4, PINC1, PINC2, HOS3, HOS5, SHE1, WERE2, EWF5, SSC, COC5PAS, OLC, D31, D41–D46, D51).
• Every .RData file contains a single object with the same name as the file (e.g. Lee in Lee.RData, Miami_Dade in Miami_Dade.RData).

Package

• Downloaded county files are cached for the rest of the R session, so each county is downloaded only once (e.g. get_county_data() followed by ei_summary()); the download timeout is raised to at least 5 minutes.
• If a file cannot be downloaded, get_county_data(), get_election_data(), ei_summary() and ei_summary_random() show a message and return NULL instead of an error.
• Help pages and print() show the county names as “Miami-Dade” and “Palm Beach” (the objects are still Miami_Dade and Palm_Beach).

Known limitations of the source

• Some precinct files are missing from the source or were overwritten by test decks (Palm Beach, Hillsborough, Highlands; in Marion, absentee precinct A008). In Palm Beach these files account for the whole shortfall: adding the certified votes of the 25 overwritten precincts brings the presidential totals to within 19 votes of the official ones. Highlands is a partial sample (about 62% of the certified votes).
• The converted ballot files end at a fixed position (VAL227 in Hillsborough, VAL171 in Lee), so races at the end of the ballot are not recorded (Tampa amendment 6; fire-district and municipal races in Lee).

eiballots 0.1.0-1

• First release.