Results Data Formats and Availability for 2014 State Election

Results Data Formats and Availability for 2014 State Election

Results data formats and availability for 2014 State election

For the November State election the VEC will again be providing results in XML format. The results data files will be published at regular intervals on our Virtual Tally Room FTP site for download by any interested party. The FTP site tallyroom.vic.gov.au will be live from Wednesday 26 November. The VEC will be undertaking a full dress rehearsal on this night. Interested parties are welcome to participate, test results will be published to this site.

The following set-up files will be made available:

1. MediaFilePollingLocations.XML

This file contains all VEC's Voting Centre information. The file will be available on our web site (vec.vic.gov.au) from Wednesday 5 November.

2. MediaFileCandidate.XML

This file contains all the candidates for both the Lower House Districts and Upper House Regions. The file will be available on our web site (vec.vic.gov.au) after the close of nominations Friday 14 November. The VEC anticipate it will be published late afternoon on this date.

3. MediaFileGroupsAndTickets.XML

This file contains all the Upper House Group & Ticket information. The file will be available on our web site (vec.vic.gov.au) after the close of tickets Sunday 16 November, again the VEC anticipate the publication will be late afternoon.

The VEC files closely follow the AEC XML standard for election data though the VEC files deviate from the AEC standard, as described below:

  • "House" will be Lower House and "Senate" will be Upper House. Election will be L for lower house and U for upper house.
  • Candidate information will include only the candidate name, affiliation (party), ballot paper position and independent indicator. No personal information such as Age, Gender, address, profession or contacts will be provided.
  • Voting Locations will include voting location name and identifier only. No address details will be included. Addresses for voting locations are available on the VEC website.

In the results data files the following results data will not be included:

  • Results by polling place for any electorate where a recount is called
  • TCP results for an electorate if a recheck or recount is called (TCP on primaries can be provided)
  • Preference Distributions
  • Candidate vote totals by type (postal, absent etc.) if a recount is called, only the total will be available
  • No below-the-line votes per grouped candidate, only above-the-line total and total votes per group
  • Declared date (true or false only)
  • Any "historic", "swing" or "percentage" values
  • Ghost candidates
  • Maverick indicators for TCP
  • No state indicators (as all would be VIC)

It’s important to note that due to the recent redivision none of the districts will have a sitting member indicator.

The following results data files will be available from 6.00 pm on election night:

1. State2014MediaFileVerboseLH.XML and State2014MediaFileVerboseUH.XML

These files contain results for both Houses (split into two files) and have all the data within the file (e.g. candidate names, party affiliations etc). These files will be generated at regular intervals (no more than every 30 mins) on election night and can be downloaded from the VEC's virtual tally room web site (address to be advised).

2. State2014MediaFileLiteLH.XML and State2014MediaFileLiteUH.XML

These files contain results for both Houses (split into two files) but in order to make the files manageable, will not contain the level of detail of the Verbose File. The candidate information in these files will link with the candidate information within the MediaFileCandidate.XML. These files will be generated at regular intervals (between every 2 and 5 mins) on election night and can be downloaded from the VEC's virtual tally room web site (address to be advised). Please note that these files will not contain votes by Voting Centre.

3. State2014MediaFileLitePPLH.XML and State2014MediaFileLitePPUH.XML

These files contain results for both Houses (split into two files) but in order to make the files manageable, will not contain the level of detail of the Verbose Files. The candidate & voting centre information in this file will link with the candidate & voting centre information within the MediaFileCandidate.XML & MediaFilePollingLocations.XML files. These files will be generated at regular intervals (between every 2 and 5 mins) on election night and can be downloaded from the VEC's virtual tally room web site (address to be advised).

Samples of these files can be provided on request.

On election night, we anticipate seeing the first results at about 6.45 pm to 7.00 pm; obviously the results will start off coming in slowly but will build as the night proceeds. We are aiming for all counts to be finalised by 10.00 pm though counting may continue in voting centres taking a large number of votes. The counting order at each voting centre will be:

  • District primary
  • District 2CP and
  • Region primary.

2,000 postal votes per district will be counted in election offices on election night (in same order as voting centres) and these results will be included in the results files as they become available.

All offices will be conducting district and region rechecks in the week following the election. Once rechecks commence primary results will no longer be available in the data files. Primary data will be replaces by recheck data.

Should you have any questions or require sample data files please contact:

Glenda Frazer

Manager, Election Services

Phone: 03 8620 1151

Mobile: 0413 043 012

Email:

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