The election results simulator is a basic simulation that allows you to generate a set of results where you decide who wins. You can specify who wins each riding or simply assign a total number of seats for each party and let the simulator decide who gets which riding.
Database Setup
When you launch the simulator you will be first prompted to set the options for connecting to the election database you are using.
It is important to
- select the correct election database
- enter the correct election date
Simulation Setup
Once you have successfully connected to an election database instance you will see the main interface for the simulator. Here you can
- specify a time frame (duration) for the simulation to run.
- it will update results every 30 seconds incrementing votes and polls reporting gradually
- specify votes per riding
- divided among the candidates in the ridings to ensure the selected party wins the riding
- choose party ridings automatically or manually
- when the simulator chooses the ridings that each party will will you simply provide the total number of ridings the party will win.
- otherwise you must manually select the party for each riding
Running the Simulator
Choose Ridings Automatically
When you let the simulator choose the ridings automatically you only need to provide a total number of seats that each party will be leading/winning. Then when you press play it will assign each riding to a party in such a way that each party gets its assigned number of seats.
Choose Ridings Manually
When you want to specify which party wins each riding party total values are ignored and instead you select a party from the dropdown list for each riding.
Save, Load and Clear Manual Scenarios
Once you have gone to all the work of specifying the party for each riding - it would be great to be able to save those selections either to run again as-is or make a few changes and then run again. Thankfully you can using the scenario menu above the list of ridings.
This becomes especially handy when you discover that this makes it possible to switch between scenarios during the simulation. You do this by creating and saving multiple scenarios. Then start the simulation with the first scenario. At an appropriate time - pause the simulator and open a new scenario. Then simply resume and see the new scenario apply at the next update.
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