The Waiting Game – Progress

For our midterm (which is delayed due to Hurricane Sandy) my group is supposed to create an interactive data representation of the U.S. election system. After brainstorming a couple of nights, we decided on the issue of wait times at the poll. To make a statement about the ridiculousness of the problem, we decided to make a ridiculous sketch, to comment on the absurdity of the problem.

The waiting game is a data visualization representing the waiting lines at the polls during the 2012 Presidential Elections. A program collected tweets containing word that suggest waiting times to vote. Based on those tweets, we calculated averages for waiting times in the states where data was available. After the user selects a state to vote in, George Washington travels along the path in the sketch with a speed determined by that state’s average waiting time. When he finishes the line, his vote is cast.

This is a screen shot of what the sketch is looking like right now:

Here’s what will happen after you wait the 1-6 hours it will take you to vote:

This is how I organized the states in the blue box:

Here’s a GIF that we’re using for now. If copyright issues ensue, we’re working on our very own George Washington alternative inspired by Andy Rash’s 8 Bit GOP candidates you can see .

Here’s ours:

And the original background: