The United Kingdom's electorate went to the polls on December 12th 2019 to vote in a new government. Elections are always messy affairs, and this one was no different. It was overshadowed by the long-running saga of Brexit but in a surprising outcome the Conservative party romped to a landslide win with 365 parliamentary seats compared to Labour, who came second with 203 seats. Prime Minister Boris Johnson returns to power and governs with a majority of 80 seats.

This map shows the results as an abstract Jackson Pollock inspired painting, a visual metaphor for the messy campaigning and results of a UK election. Each of the 650 constituencies is symbolized by four splats of paint. They represent the winning party, runner-up, third place and also-rans and are coloured according to the political affiliation of the party of the candidate as follows:

Green Party (1 seat)

 

Brexit Party (0 seats)

United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP, 0 seats)

Others/Independents (0 seats)

Paint splats are sized proportionally according to the number of votes each party received and transparency modifies the symbol by share of vote. Lower shares of the vote are more transparent. Boris Johnson literally re-painted the map blue in large swathes of the country. As you zoom in the paint morphs into small clusters to show the mix for each constituency.

It's a proportional symbol splat map that paints a colourful picture of the complex and messy geography of UK elections. More paint is applied to the map in areas with small, urban constituencies and larger populations. Larger, predominantly rural constituencies appear less splattered which highlights the disparities in the population distribution of the electorate.

You can also click the map to explore the details of the results for each constituency.

Got something to say about this map? Feel free to get in touch with me. Kenneth Field, Esri Inc (@kennethfield)

With thanks to Ben Flanagan, Esri UK