MGGG States

One of the main challenges in studying elections is processing election results into geospatial files. Precinct boundaries, the smallest unit at which elections are reported, are determined by localities, and thus the quality of the boundary data varies widely. Early on in the Lab, we spent an inordinate amount of time and effort cleaning these precinct data products, which were stored in a GitHub repository called MGGG States.

While we no longer maintain this repository, and many of the election results are significantly out of date, we felt it important to explain why it exists. Moreover, it highlights how government intersects data, and shows the importance of collecting high-quality geographic boundaries.