Susan T.

Williams
GEOG 484
Lesson 6: Design/Build GIS (Week 3)
In Lesson 6, we completed our fictitious duties as GIS Analyst for the Whig political party, which involved the
analysis of data regarding the city of Fitchburg, MA in order to answer these specific questions that the Whig
party presented us with:
1. What areas of the city have the lowest percentage of registered voters?
2. Is there any variation in party support within the city (i.e., Do different parties dominate different parts of
the city?)
3. Should the Whigs invest in Spanish language flyers for the growing Hispanic population?
If so, where should they distribute them? (Sloan, 2012)

The first map created to help us in our analysis (see Figure 1) is a choropleth map displaying registered voters
in the city of Fitchburg, per Block Group, as a percentage of the total population. The lighter green-colored
areas indicate the lowest percentage of registered voters whereas the darker green-colored areas indicate the
highest percentage of registered voters.
This map, however, is not adjusted to remove those who are below the voting age of 18 from the proportional
count, so the data includes all ages.
This map helps to answer the first question that the Whig party wants to know, which is:
What areas of the city have the lowest percentage of registered voters?
A quick perusal of the map reveals that there are three census block groups in the city that contain the lowest
percent of registered voters: one each in the west, east, and central portions of the city. These three areas
contain percentages of registered voters ranging from approximately 38% to 45%, which means that there are
approximately 55% to 62% of UN-registered voters in these areas who could be potential targets of the Whigs
campaign to maximize turnout at the citys voting booths.

Or Votar por los Whigs, as the Spanish version would say!

Figure 1: Thematic map(Image
showing
thehttp://www.despair.com/votewhig.html
amount of registered voters (as a percentage of the
from

total population) per each Census

Group
in the city
of Fitchburg,
MA. Classified in five
Used Block
here for
educational
purposes
only.)
Natural Breaks (Jenks) categories, the areas containing the lowest percent of registered
voters are colored light green and areas containing the highest percent of registered voters

are colored dark green. Map produced with ESRI ArcMap v10.0. Used here for educational
purposes only.

Our

second map (see Figure 2) helps to address the second question presented by the Whig party:
Is there any variation in party support within the city (i.e., Do different parties dominate
different parts of the city?)

Figure 2: Pie charts showing political party affiliation per Census Block Group in the city of
Fitchburg, MA. The pie charts are overlaying the choropleth map displaying total voter
registration (as shown in Figure 1). A quick glance reveals that the Mugwump and Whig
parties dominate in all areas of the city. Map produced with ESRI ArcMap v10.0. Used
here for educational purposes only.

This map seems to help answer the above-question about party dominance with the response that there is only
a very slight variation in dominance in different areas, and that slight edge is held by only two parties: the
Mugwumps and the Whigs. For more specifics, I ran an attribute query to select which block groups had greater
numbers of registered Mugwumps over registered Whigs (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Screen capture of the Party Affiliations attribute table showing the results of an attribute query. The areas
highlighted in blue are Block Groups in the City of Fitchburg that contain a greater number of voters registered to the
Mugwumps political party, which is the only party that really serves as competition for Whig dominance.

These 21 selected block groups are

shown in Figure 4 at left. Again, the
block groups outlined in bright blue
are the areas that contain a larger
number of registered Mugwump
voters over registered Whig voters.
However, it is fairly difficult to pick
out which sections are which, so I
exported the selections as a new
layer and colored the Mugwumpdominated areas a light red to make
them much easier to pick out at first
glance (see Figure 5).

Figure 4: Block groups that have

more registered Mugwumps than
registered Whigs in the city of
Fitchburg. Map produced with ESRI
ArcMap v10.0. Used here for
educational purposes only.

Figure 5: Thematic map illustrating the Mugwump vs. Whig areas of dominance in the city of
Fitchburg, MA. The Census Block Groups dominated (however slightly) by the Mugwumps are shown in
light red, whereas the Census Block Groups dominated by the Whigs are shown in light green. Map
produced with ESRI ArcMap v10.0. Used here for educational purposes only.

Thanks to the map shown in Figure 5, we can see a clearer pattern in the party support within the city.
While the Mugwumps and the Whigs are the only two parties that dominate any block at all, the Whigs seem
to have their greatest party support concentrated in the central areas of the city, along with a block group on
the eastern edge. The Mugwumps, on the other hand, seem to have their greatest party support in the
outlying block groups around the edge of the city, with some encroachment into the central areas. Therefore
we can answer the second question with a Yes there is some variation among party support within the
city.

The last question which we were tasked to answer was:

Should the Whigs invest in Spanish language flyers for the growing Hispanic population?
And if so, where should they distribute them?
In order to address the first part of the question, I utilized the raw counts of the number of registered Hispanic
voters, the total Hispanic population, the number of registered voters of all ethnicities, and the total population of
all ethnicities, to create a table calculating the percentage of the Hispanic population that is registered to vote
compared to the percentage of the total population that is registered to vote (ibid). Although this does not
eliminate those among the population who are ineligible to vote due to young age, it gives us an approximate
idea of whether or not the Hispanic vote is a large-enough target to justify the flyers (see Figure 6).
Figure 6: Screen capture of the Pct_Voters table which summarizes the percentage of registered Hispanic
voters compared to the percentage of the total population that is registered to vote in the city of Fitchburg.
Of the 39,102 residents, 20,976 (53.6%) are registered voters. Of those 53.6% registered voters, 23.3% are
Hispanic. Screen capture from ESRI ArcMap v10.0. Used here for educational purposes only.

The Table in Figure 6 is rather revealing in that we see that, out of the 53.6% of the population that is registered
to vote in the city of Fitchburg, 23.3% of them are of Hispanic ethnicity. That is 43.5% of the registered voting
population! This makes it quite clear that winning Hispanic voters over to the Whig party would be extremely
beneficial, as the Hispanic vote makes up a large percentage of the total. Therefore, it is a resounding Yes that
the Whigs should invest in the Spanish-language flyers for distribution.

In order to tackle the second part of the question, regarding exactly WHERE the flyers should be distributed, I
first created a map displaying the amount of registered Hispanic voters (as a percentage of the total Hispanic
population) as shown below in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Thematic map showing the percent of registered Hispanic voters (as a percentage of the total
Hispanic population) per each Census Block Group in the city of Fitchburg, MA. Classified in five
Natural Breaks (Jenks) categories, the areas containing the lowest percent of registered Hispanic voters
are colored light beige and areas containing the highest percent of registered Hispanic voters are
colored dark red. Map produced with ESRI ArcMap v10.0. Used here for educational purposes only.

The additional numbers shown on the map are the number of registered Hispanic voters within each census
block group. This is important to know, as canvassing a block group with Spanish flyers would be fruitless if
there were no Hispanic voters in that area. It is useful to note that some areas of the city contain as much as 35
to 50% of the Hispanic population as registered voters.

The question of areas of distribution is slightly more difficult to answer, as it is unclear as to what exactly the
Whig party is aiming for:
Do they simply want to target all registered Hispanic voters?
Do they want to target those Hispanic voters who are already registered to vote but reside in a Mugwumpdominated area of the city?
Or do they want to encourage Hispanic residents who are currently unregistered to become registered to vote?
If the Whig party is planning to follow the first scenario - that is, focusing on those voters who are already
registered they might opt to simply target the areas in Figure 7 that show the largest percentages of registered
Hispanic voters.
If the Whig party wants to fine-tune their method a bit in order to attract voters who may have been following the
opposition, they may opt to target areas of the city that have the highest percentage of registered Hispanic
voters AND are dominated by Mugwumps.
With this in mind, I created a map showing two possible areas of priority for the Whigs to focus their efforts on
when distributing Spanish-language flyers (see Figure 8). I used the Mugwump Dominance map from Figure 5
(now shown in light gray in Figure 8) but turned off the areas of Whig dominance (now shown in white in Figure
8). I added the Hispanic Registration layer and turned off the colors for all areas except the two highest
categories containing the highest percentages of registered Hispanic voters. This resulted in a map that showed
areas that contain both Mugwump dominance AND the highest percentages of registered Hispanic voters. The
areas with the very highest percentage were given a new bright red color and the areas with the second-highest
percentage received a new bright-yellow color. This way, the Whigs can decide, based on budget and other
considerations, if they would like to canvas just the highest priority areas or if they have the capabilities to reach
out to additional potential areas as well.
As to WHERE the Whig party should distribute their flyers, I would recommend they begin with the First Priority
Areas shown in red on the map of Priority Target Areas (Figure 8). Not only do these block group areas contain
the highest numbers of registered Hispanic voters, they also happen to be located pretty close together, which
will help maximize Whig resources in distribution efforts. If they still have the resources for additional efforts, I
would recommend that the Whig Party next target the Second Priority Areas shown in yellow. I would also
point out that most of the centrally-located Second Priority areas are fairly small and therefore quicker and
easier to canvas than a large area would be.

Figure 8: Thematic map showing the areas of the city of Fitchburg, MA, which the Whig party
should focus on when distributing their Spanish-language flyers. These areas represent both a high
percent of registered Hispanic voters (as a percentage of the total Hispanic population) AND areas
that are dominated by the opposing Mugwump political party. The highest-priority areas that should
be focused on first are colored bright red, and potential secondary targets are colored bright

yellow. Map produced with ESRI ArcMap v10.0. Used here for educational purposes only.

HOWEVER, if this is not the Whig partys intention, and they prefer to follow the second scenario noted above
that is, to encourage Hispanic residents who are currently unregistered to become registered to vote and
hopefully vote Whig then we need a different approach.
Rather than selecting areas that contain high percentages of registered Hispanic voters, I instead selected areas
with the lowest percentages because these are the areas in which the Whigs would be likely to find larger
numbers of citizens who could be encouraged to register. However, we also want the areas that contain a large
Hispanic population. I performed an attribute query to select out only those areas that were dominated by the
opposing Mugwump party AND that contained a percentage of registered Hispanic voters equal to or less than
18.48% (the upper limit of the second-lowest category), AND whose percentage of unregistered Hispanic voters

as compared to the total percentage of all ethnicities was greater than 25%. The selections were exported out
as a new layer as shown in Figure 9 below.
Figure 9: Target
areas for the Whig
Party to focus on
first when distributing
their Spanishlanguage flyers.
These target areas,
shown in red, contain
the highest
percentage of
unregistered Hispanic
voters (as compared
to the total
unregistered
percentage of all
ethnicities combined)
and are also block
groups that are
currently dominated
by the opposing
Mugwump party. The
numbers shown in the
target areas are the
raw count of
unregistered Hispanic
voters in that specific
block group, not
adjusted for age or
other voting eligibility
requirements. Map
produced with ESRI
ArcMap v10.0. Used
here for educational
purposes only.

It is important to note that there is no overlap in these two potential Target Area maps, so it will be critical to
determine what course of action the Whig party wants to take targeting the registered or unregistered voters.
While I removed areas dominated by Whigs from consideration, this may be something to add back in when
determining priority areas. I took this factor into consideration during this lesson, however, because one of the
questions focused on which areas, if any, were dominated by specific parties. Therefore I assumed that the
Whig party would want to know this in order to not expend resources on areas in which they already had enough
party support.

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If I had the time, I might try to compose a map that targets ALL potential Hispanic voters whether registered or
unregistered and regardless of whether or not they live in an area of the city that is already dominated by the
Whig party. The ideal map would also adjust for age by removing members of the population under the age of
18 who are therefore too young to vote.

GENERAL REFERENCES
Sloan, J. (1999-2012). GIS Database Development, Lesson 6. The Pennsylvania State University World
Campus Certificate Program in GIS. Accessed February 2012 from https://www.eeducation.psu.edu/geog484/l6.html
ArcMap v10.0 GIS software by Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI).
Vote Whig humorous graphic courtesy of Despair, Inc. Retrieved February 21, 2012 from
http://www.despair.com/votewhig.html

This document is published in fulfillment of an assignment by a student enrolled in an educational

offering of the Pennsylvania State University. The student, named above, retains all rights to the
document and responsibility for its accuracy and originality.

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