Bradshaw for US Senate: Live Turnout Tracking
In 2020, I worked as a Bluebonnet data fellow supporting two campaigns:
Bradshaw for US Senate and Alaina 2020 (House of Representatives).
Campaigns ramp up before the elction like sports teams ramp up before nationals, so I spent the week before election day in a hotel room in Memphis - the longest time I've ever gone without seeing the sun.
Another other college student (Eddie) and I built a live turnout tracking map for election day. By Tennessee state law, someone can ask for vote turnout totals every two hours at a polling station, so we had
volunteers spaced out across the state taking measurements every two hours and feeding them into a google form, which then was transformed by spreadsheet logic and python and magic into a live, interactive turnout tracker.
This map extrapolated turnout across the state and estimated the result of the election based primarly on (a) historical voting patterns and (b) the relative turnout of our 7 key counties versus the rest
of the state. We were able to call the election before the news stations, which was at the same time gratifying and depressing.