Template talk:Infobox election

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Infoboxes

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Elections and Referendums

This template is within the scope of WikiProject Elections and Referendums, an ongoing effort to improve the quality of, expand upon and create new articles relating to elections, electoral reform and other aspects of democratic decision-making. For more information, visit our project page.Elections and ReferendumsWikipedia:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsTemplate:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsElections and Referendums

Major parties coming in third with less than 5%

On 1987 Chicago mayoral election, 1989 Chicago mayoral special election, 1991 Chicago mayoral election, and 1995 Chicago mayoral election, the Republican candidates, which weren't included before due to getting less than 5% of the vote and coming in third, were added to the infobox with the argument that there is longer the same consensus support that there once was to always employing a 5% cutoff. This is what Wikipedia:Five percent rule says on the matter "Several RFCs have established that third-party candidates must poll over five percent to be included in an infobox. The only exception is if only one candidate polls over five percent, in which case the second-place finisher may be included if determined appropriate by local consensus. This does not strictly apply to parliamentary elections, where other criteria may be used to include candidates if deemed appropriate." It doesn't indicate that opinions have changed, but there seems to be a bit of ambiguity, as it's not a third party that received less than 5% and didn't come in second. Should it be included or not? 2601:249:9301:D570:CC73:8E4F:4E6B:AB1B (talk) 01:05, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, the fact that it's a major party getting less than 5% creates that ambiguity. Hence why I believed there was a good reason to believe that the usually-deployed 5% guideline was inapplicable here (it's more so for third-parties and nonpartisan races).

Rarely does a major-party nominee receive sub-5% in elections for which we create dedicated articles (most elections election infoboxes are elections with dedicated articles), thus explaining why this question has not yet been clearly addressed.

There were a number of reasons it seemed to me that on a case-by-case basis, the Chicago examples would be good articles to include the Republican nominee even though they received sub-5%.

The Republican Party was an official major party in the state of the Illinois at the time of the elections (as it has been since the 1850s).

I lean towards general inclusion, with room for exclusion if persuasive reasoning exists.

SecretName101 (talk) 01:23, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth the individual state pages for the 1860 United States presidential election and 1912 United States presidential election don't list the Republican candidate in the infoboxes if they got less than 5% of the vote. 2601:249:9301:D570:CC73:8E4F:4E6B:AB1B (talk) 03:54, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think a general lower threshold (1%? .1%?) would be more appropriate, for completeness. The fortunes of third parties in American politics is an important public issue, for example.-- Beland (talk) 21:42, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Beland this particular discussion is about the handling of major parties when their candidates receive sub-5% vote shares. Not third parties SecretName101 (talk) 07:34, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and my opinion is that "major" parties should not be given special treatment; if it's encyclopedic when they get less than 5% of the vote, then neutrality seems to demand it's encyclopedic when other parties do as well. -- Beland (talk) 07:38, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Beland the very word “major” denotes the inherent significance of these parties. America has a political culture where (for centuries) two-party systems have dominated. It’s not un-encyclopedic to account for that. SecretName101 (talk) 05:45, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And everyone who supports third parties here feels like it's not neutral to decide that those are the only two that should be talked about. Third party agendas are often ignored in public debates, get little coverage during election season, their candidates often aren't invited to debates...to say that the votes they get despite all those obstacles won't even be reported in the most popular source of information, well that seems like nearly complete erasure. Which seems especially harsh if we're only talking about adding one additional line to a table as the only thing that documents the existence of a given movement in that election for posterity. It's a bit less of a big deal if there's a table elsewhere on the page with full results and the infobox gives a total for "Other parties" or "Other candidates". That would be a more neutral rule, and would cope better with a hard 5% cutoff.

Third parties do have an important impact. The Green presidential candidate in 2000 probably swung the election for the Republicans. The fact that there are independent US Senators who caucus with the Democrats has at times decided the balance of power in that body. Candidates have gotten elected to Congress from the Know Nothing and Whig parties, despite not being part of the two dominant parties. -- Beland (talk) 06:17, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Whig Party was a major party at one point. As for Ralph Nader in 2000, he received less than 5% of the vote, so he wouldn’t qualify for the infobox. 66.99.15.163 (talk) 21:09, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that seems like that would be a major information gap, given the pivotal nature of the 2000 Nader vote totals, unless we want to handle it with an "other" line (given that all "other" votes in Florida mattered a lot). -- Beland (talk) 01:15, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In term of percentage of vote, Nader in 2000 got less than other people not on the infobox like John P. Hale in 1852, Eugene V. Debs in 1904, 1908, and 1920, James B. Weaver in 1880, Gary Johnson in 2016, and Allan L. Benson in 1916, so I don't see much of an argument for including him over them. 2601:249:9301:D570:1C36:B316:2ADD:408D (talk) 04:27, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nader was more consequential because of the closeness of the election. But I agree a numerical threshold is more neutral, and I'd be fine lowering it enough to include all of them. Otherwise, there should at least be an "Other" line in all these elections. -- Beland (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Consequential" is more of a subjective determination. 2601:249:9301:D570:94BF:1137:AC8:B3A6 (talk) 17:12, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, which is why I advocate a numeric threshold. -- Beland (talk) 00:32, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is already a numeric threshold, which Nader's performance falls below. 98.228.137.44 (talk) 17:22, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine, if it's applied equally to Republicans, Democrats, Whigs, and Know-Nothings. -- Beland (talk) 21:38, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Beland: What anyone "feels like" is not really an encyclopedic concern.

And not being automatically included in an infobox is not the same as receiving no mention within an article. Not receiving automatic infobox inclusion is not erasure, they are still able to be mentioned in the body of the articles.

As for your grievances about the political system: WP:SOAP. That's simply not the conversation here.

As for your proposal of regularly denoting in infoboxes the totals of candidates not included in the infobox, there's possible merit to that and you can propose it if you have a more fleshed-out idea of what that could look like. It'd be a heavy undertaking for Wikipedians to actually implement that though, because it would mean manually looking through every American election article, seeing if there are non-included candidates, and applying whatever the consensus is to each of those articles. Gargantuan task, but one that could still be proposed and phased-in if agreed to. SecretName101 (talk) 06:15, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Those grievances are not mine; I'm just trying to explain why some readers would feel certain treatments are not neutral, which is a core encyclopedic concern. All reasonable readers should feel that articles give a fair and accurate account of the facts.

Not sure what needs fleshing out...the compromise would be putting "Other parties" or "Other candidates" or "Other" in infoboxes, with full results in the article. I'd argue neutrality demands a strict numeric threshold. If people feel "major" parties are left out too often at 5%, then maybe a 1% threshold would be better. -- Beland (talk) 20:19, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Know-Nothings and Whigs would count as major parties at certain times, so I think it'd be sensible to include them in cases where they fall under 5%. There's certainly nothing special about the labels "Democrat" or "Republican"—I'd just argue that if a candidate happens to fall below 5% in one district, but their party regularly wins more than 5% of the vote nationally, it's reasonable to include them. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 16:55, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:44, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This seems unfair to parties who in other elections got just as high a percentage of votes as the Republicans in those elections. -- Beland (talk) 01:40, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean here; are you saying that for 1860 the Constitutional Union Party should also be included? Because I'd agree with that.

If you want the general principle I'm using, my suggestion is to show any candidates who win 5% of the vote, or are members of a party that won 5% of the vote nationwide. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:53, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The "or won 5% of the vote nationwide" part is what is giving certain parties coverage which is disproportionately large compared to the number of votes they got in the race which is the topic of the article. That seems unfair to supporters of smaller parties, who often complain (rightly or wrongly) the press intentionally ignores them. -- Beland (talk) 00:51, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which a consensus could change. And would probably be a benefit to those pages to do so.

the question would be whether to consider the 1912 Progressive party a major party in that specific election or not. SecretName101 (talk) 07:37, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A few statewide results in the 1892 United States presidential election and 1948 United States presidential election are in a similar situation. 98.228.137.44 (talk) 23:37, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In 1948, Alabama was a different scenario. The Truman-led Democratic national ticket did not have ballot access in Alabama, with the state's Democratic party fusion nominating the Dixiecrat ticket. Similarly, 1892 it was also different because the state Democratic parties in Colorado and Idaho fusion nominated the People's ticket, while Kansas and Wyoming had no Democratic Party ballot access (Dems also had no North Dakota ballot access, but received an electoral vote nevertheless and therefore are already on the infobox) SecretName101 (talk) 06:40, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Same poster as before, IP address changed based on location) I was referring to cases like 1948 United States presidential election in Mississippi and 1892 United States presidential election in Alabama where the Republican candidate was on the ballot, but got less than 5% of the vote and came in third place, so they aren’t included in the infobox, which is more similar to the issue being discussed above. 66.99.15.163 (talk) 14:50, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say so, since they polled over 5% of the vote nationally. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 16:56, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5% is meant to be a rule of thumb; I think these should be included. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:43, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Should the other brought up examples also include them? 66.99.15.163 (talk) 19:39, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Council leaders

I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this so I'm asking here: how do I use the leader field in elections? Unlike many parliamentary or presidential systems, the leader of a local political party within the context of UK council elections is usually decided after the election whereas in national elections it is decided before.

I'll give an example: for the 1981 Greater London Council election the article lists Andrew McIntosh as the leader of the Labour Party because he was the group leader before the election, but he was only leader until 24 hours after the election took place, when the Labour councillors elected a new group leader. So who do I list as the leader? DimensionalFusion (talk · she/her) 12:09, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The documentation states that "The "leader" of each party is the person leading the party through that election, so in this case would be McIntosh. Using a post-election leader would be misleading IMO. Number 5 7 15:49, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By-election example needs updating

The by-election example given in the documentation (Template:Infobox election#By-election) could do with some updating, because it is noticeably sloppy: there's unnecessary explanatory text shoved into the top (not following how the parameter is supposed to be used), there's a boundary map (not a results map) in the infobox; Galloway's image is in landscape, throwing off the balance; and it doesn't abide by the 5% rule, either. This isn't just me nitpicking: boundary maps in the infobox are common for UK by-election articles (and only UK by-election articles), stubbornly reappearing despite efforts to get rid of them (full disclosure: by me), and I can't help but wonder one appearing in this example is part of the reason why.

The actual 2012 Bradford West by-election page shows a much cleaner infobox with none of these issues. Could an admin have that version ported over here? — Kawnhr (talk) 21:25, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The /doc should be editable by anyone, so feel free to make improvements if you feel they are necessary. Primefac (talk) 12:02, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ah geez, I completely missed that. Thanks for the heads up, I've replaced the example now. — Kawnhr (talk) 17:06, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Replace "ongoing" with better parameter

We should replace the parameter "ongoing" with better parameter. Election system is not the same in every countries. Also there can be unique results and aftermath the infobox needs to be updated on. So, I propose to replace "ongoing" with a new parameter named "status".

In status parameter, we can choose from several options – "ongoing", "completed", "cancelled", "annulled", "scheduled", "proposed" and "suspended". For example, if we put "cancelled" on the paramter then the date section will show the text "Cancelled" with the scheduled date with bracket (or we can omit the date as the election is cancelled).

We can also replace "date" with "start date" and "end date" as some election events are long and I think we should mention the complete date. For example, writing start and end date will show "START – END" in the date part of the infobox.

I believe adding these things are not so complex and will help readers to understand election topics more in Wikipedia. Mehedi Abedin 02:24, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Accessibility

Got to be a way of fixing the text sandwiching because of massive width. We have thousands of pages that are an accessibility nightmare at 800px. We should ensure infoboxes are sized correctly so they don't push text unnecessarily so those with visual problems can still read the lead prose text. Moxy🍁 07:56, 17 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please link to at least one page as an example. When I go to 1996 United States presidential election and shrink my window to 800px wide (are we really worried about 800px windows in 2025?), the sidebars disappear and I get "Presidential elections were held in" as the first line of prose. The column is narrow, but that is exactly what I would expect at 800px wide. I don't see any sandwiching, because there is nothing on the left. I don't see the word "width" at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility; what exactly is inaccessible about a narrow column of prose? – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:33, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The sandwiching of text can occur because an image or in this case the info box is too large it doesn't need to be in between two things. Narrow columns of text can hinder accessibility by making it difficult for individuals with reading or vision disabilities to track the text and follow the flow of information. We should also avoid using narrow columns of content because they will not respond well to scaling. MOS:RESOL Moxy🍁 15:16, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The screen shot to the right does not make sense to me. It appears that the app being used, or something in the user's preferences, has greatly enlarged the body text while keeping the infobox text, which is supposed to render at 88% of the body text size, extremely small. Wikipedia's normal text-sizing settings are not designed for that sort of modification; there is no way to please everyone, especially people who customize in this way. The screen shot also shows a portrait-mode view of an article, which is clearly not the way to look at an article using this sort of enlarged text; any infobox or lead image would cause the same sort of problem, not just this infobox. What happens when you use a more reasonable landscape mode for viewing the article? – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:20, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All will see it a bit different (like all elements) for some it wont be too bad for others it will be even worst then what is being presented here. Looking for solutions that will help all. I suggest looking at all platforms mobile and non mobile views to see what others see. Moxy🍁 17:25, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, but the text size disparity does not make sense to me. I think the image sizes are a problem, however, and have tried to address them below. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:59, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to fix this issue, you will need to limit the size of the maps allowed (or by removing the option to set map widths). The template currently sets its width to the largest of the maps inside it, which is apparently around 500px for about 20 templates. Another thousand set it to 400-499. The remainder of the 34k uses of this template are less than that, with a default of 300px.

If that is not an appropriate solution, there is largely nothing that can be done. Some pages just aren't going to look good when we have the variety of templates we have. The best one might be able to offer would be to adjust when this template goes to full width, but it is unlikely there would be consensus for a number so large as 800. Izno (talk) 15:42, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see we say "The lead image in an infobox should not impinge on the default size of the infobox. Therefore, it should be no wider than upright=1.35 (equivalent to 300px...." We could also remove the side text beside the images place it in a better location perhaps to reduce the width? Moxy🍁 15:46, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

|upright=1.35 is equivalent to 300px only when the user is logged in and also has 220px set as their preferred thumbnail size. For those people who are logged out, a recent change to the default thumbnail size, to 250px, means that the equivalent of 300px is now |upright=1.2 - if |upright=1.35 continues to be used, the effective width will be 340px. See m:Tech/News/2025/16 (currently posted at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Tech News: 2025-16 and some user talk pages). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:27, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the map is the problem at 2025 Canadian federal election. That map was 400px wide, but the infobox (I just edited the template to limit the map size to 300px wide, per the guideline), at least logged out on my screen, is 485px wide (in the screen shot, you can see white space on either side of the map).

~~Moxy may be noticing a result of the recent default thumbnail size increase.~~ The three images of candidates at the top of the infobox are about 125px wide, which corresponds to upright=0.5, the default setting at {{Infobox election/row}} when there are three images. I changed that setting to 0.4 for three images and 0.6 for two images, which should limit the three images (or two images, if there are only two) to 300px wide, per the guideline. That change is not working for me, so there may be something else going on. I think limiting the width of the three candidates' images is needed to help this infobox comply with WP:IMGSIZELEAD. Coding help is welcome. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:59, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up: I went down the wrong rabbit hole with this one. That article and others use {{CSS image crop}} with a fixed image width to show candidate images. The change in the upright setting won't affect them, as far as I can tell. That template uses fixed pixel sizes, which will determine the width of the infobox. With three 120px images side-by-side and some heading text to the left, it's easy to end up with an infobox width of 460 to 490px. If WP:IMGSIZELEAD is to be followed here, someone would have to (with consensus) adjust all of the photos in these infoboxes to use fixed pixel widths of 100px or less. At least that's my conclusion after spending too much time digging into this issue. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:25, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Smaller candidate image sizes when there are three or more candidates

I have made a change in the sandbox to display the candidate images at a smaller size when there are three or more candidates. You can see the results at Template:Infobox election/testcases. As an example, on my screen, this 1997 election infobox goes from 490px wide to 390px wide. I believe that this change complies with the spirit of WP:IMGSIZELEAD, which suggests limiting lead images to 300px wide. The combined width of the three images is limited to 330px at the most, and usually renders at less than 300px.

I expect that this change may be controversial, since it significantly shrinks the size of many candidate images. I have not moved the code to the main template. We should probably seek wider comment if we wish to make this change.

Note that this does not affect pages using {{CSS image crop}}, as noted above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:50, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I support this change. Ideally I'd also like to see the documentation updated to state that the image sizes should match the default to avoid situations where people are using css cropping and forcing much larger sizes. In the longer-term, a better solution would be to adopt the infobox style used on other languages (like es and fr) where candidates/parties are listed vertically, rather than horizontally and vertically – this would ensure a fixed width regardless of the number of candidates, and also avoid the situation that arises when there are 5/7/8 candidates in an infobox, resulting in empty spaces. Number 5 7 19:19, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good change going in the right direction looks much better. Moxy🍁 19:39, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As I have said before, all horizontal or all vertical format is better than a horizontal-vertical mix. I'd support such a change. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 14:23, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Add parameter for first and final round

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Could the template be edited to add a parameter for the first and final round, 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary has an example of how it is currently used, with 1data templates that are unnecessarily complicated and often not used on pages that they would be beneficial for. Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 21:13, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. There is no concrete edit request here, so I am deactivating the request. Discussion needs to happen about whether and how to implement whatever suggestion is being made here. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:43, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a column parameter to make it so a new parameter does not need to be manually implemented.

See "First round," "Final round," and "Runoff" parameters on:

to list a few Yoblyblob (Talk) :) 16:44, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Again, there is no concrete "change this code to that code" request here. Any editor is welcome to edit the /sandbox version of the template to experiment with new parameters and display options. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:02, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]