Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline

First Phase of Discussion

Comment: If the data is already present on a critical mass of US city articles, I see little reason why they can't be removed from city pages and merged into separate articles on presidential election results by state, where they could very easily be described in context to satisfy WP:NOSTATS and simultaneously face little in the way of UNDUE concerns. If we know a place where the information fits, we shouldn't remove it wholesale if it can give someone a framework for later article expansion or improvement, as outlined in WP:PRESERVE. The locality would become a reference point in the context of the wider election results in that district/region/state, as opposed to the election being a subject in the context of the locality itself. A great deal of importance is assigned to rarely discussed areas by a wide array of secondary sources around election time, offering ample (though somewhat fleeting) notablity, beyond that already provided by the media's wider coverage of the election in that state. Inclusion of the data in question lets discussion move sequentially, highlighting change over time. In most states, notability could likely go as far down as the district or regional level, meaning that articles could easily be branched out were they to become too large.

I'm not great with tech, so am uncertain how simple it would be to move such data over into these articles, but would think it to be a good middle ground. There could very easily be a see also links devoted to them under a politics section, which could thereafter be focused only on truly significant political events and statistics for that locality. I'm sure there are policy wonks that would be more than willing to put the pieces together if asked.

I think the WP:CRUFT argument has some weight to it. @Adflatuss is right that, for many cities, these charts remain unreferenced data without clear benefit, absent any real discussion of their implications. There are hundreds of cities / municipalities where the results of the election are pretty much certain to remain the same from one cycle to the next. It requires an undue amount of effort to present results which are rarely astonishing and often fail to improve readers' qualitative understanding of the locality in question. That being said, that information is vital to grounding discussions of regional difference and explaining the patterns of political engagement seen in various municipalities which is the focus of election by state pages. It should be maintained in some form, and I suspect there are a number of places where that could very easily be done if not at the ones I've proposed.

All the best,

CSGinger14 (talk) 10:44, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

This makes sense. As I said on the previous discussions, "A potential idea I do have is to make articles specifically on their politics for each California county where these tables for the county as a whole, their cities, and the unincorporated areas could all go together, along with information about their local governments. I don't know if doing that would make sense for other states with smaller counties, but I think it could potentially make sense for California with how heavily populated its counties are." I don't know about having one page for the whole state, since there would be over 500 charts on it. Maybe there would be like 8 of so of those pages, dividing the state up by region? Also, I'm curious if you would propose the same change in removing presidential election tables from county pages and consolidating them to dedicated pages. CrazedElectron27 (talk) 15:49, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

Ultimately, my proposal would be to WP:Merge existing city results into one of three places, and thereafter remove information from city pages. Per WP:PRESERVE, it should not be standard practice to remove it abruptly under the assumption that someone else will eventually add it elsewhere. Editors that wish to enforce the consensus should place it in the correct location, or leave it be otherwise, since we've determined that it is encyclopedic, and should ultimately be preserved in the relevant area. Independent cities or municipalities which effectively comprise all of their county's territory should have results preserved regardless. I've compiled a list of options, most simply determining merge location, though other choices are presented to avoid fragmenting discussion.

• Option A: City results are preserved on their respective pages.

Variations of A based on points raised in discussion (Added 4-15-2026, thank you @E bailey):

• A1 (Exclusionary): Results already present on pages can be preserve / updated. Adding results to any new pages discouraged.
• A2 (Exclusive): City results for major metropoles / pages already possessing up to date information warranted for inclusion. Addition of municipal results on new pages discouraged.
• A3 (Inclusive): Results preserved and explicitly allowed on all city / municipality pages

• Option B: City results are merged into the county page. This would be done alongside all other relevant municipalities, meaning larger comparative tables or a separate section on 'Results by municipality' must be added. Only county results are displayed on State election pages (e.g. 2020 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania).
• Option C: City results are merged into pages (many of which would need to be created) detailing results in specific congressional districts. Typically congressional results are listed on the page for the district (e.g. California's 8th congressional district), though results aren't typically localized. If such results can be found on a city page, they should be added there instead. Nonetheless, we'd have to choose how to structure them - I've laid out a few options below:

• C1) According to the election year; this would create a massive glut of new pages, and be a rather lengthy process if it wasn't systematized, but would benefit from being the most specific. It would, however create an aesthetic nightmare of a See also box within the Politics section of most city pages.
• C2) According to redistricting years; A disambiguation link could far more easily be provided to list out pages in this manner, but it would run into the same issue of mass-page creation and linkage difficulties. This would be the last option where a city could be easily situated in a particular district at a particular time. Nevertheless, editors would need to go about placing it in the page for the correct district all the way back to the nation's founding, which would be a considerable task.
• C3) Across the district's history; the most difficult, but also the most informative, though at the expense of attention not being paid to particular municipalities. See also sections would only be a little shorter than they would be with C2.

Maps of cities within the district would likely be needed for reference.

• Option D: City results are merged into the state results page (e.g. 2020 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania). Larger statistical tables would need to be created, and the data would have to be multilayered to include counties alongside them. Something between a disambiguation link and root page would need to be created to list all election years for that particular state (e.g. 'Presidential elections in Pennsylvania').
• Option E (Seems to be the stance of a majority of those stating Oppose): City results are removed entirely, and county-level results are made the preferred standard for presentation. I won't list an option to remove county results, as that would likely need to be determined at WikiProject U.S. counties

This should cover the range of potential choices well, but feel free to add additional proposals if you disagree.

To reiterate voting options:

• Option A: City results are preserved on their respective pages.

• A1: Exclusionary, see above
• A2: Exclusive, see above
• A3: Inclusive, see above

• Option B: City results are merged into the county page alongside other municipalities.
• Option C: City results are moved into pages detailing results in specific congressional districts, either:

C1) According to the election year.

C2) According to redistricting years.

C3) Across the district's history.

• Option D: City results are merged into the state results page for each presidential election.
• Option E: City results are removed entirely, and county-level results are made the preferred standard location for presentation.

All the best,

CSGinger14 (talk) 03:38, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Option A is what I originally did with my edits, but consensus seems to be against it at this point, and you brought up good points. I would like option B to add the results by multiplicity (and unincorporated area) tables to the county pages, which works for most of the counties in the state which only have a handful of multiplicities. However, there are some counties in the state with a massive amount of multiplicities (Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernadino, etc), for those would it potentially make sense to have a "Politics of X County" page dedicated to explaining their political histories and listing the multiplicity tables? I am not a fan of option C since congressional districts change every 10 years (and for California is changing this year as well), so having tables including elections from before the cities were in said congressional district would not make sense. Option D is something I already implemented for the 2000-2024 California presidential election pages (as well as governor elections and a few propositions), and I think it makes sense for those articles since the city tables provide a far more granular look at how places in the state voted than the county tables. However, I see no reason why options B and D cannot co-exist, since charts showing a single city's results from 2000 to 2024 provide different purposes than the charts listing how each city voted in one specific election. The former shows the granular breakdown statewide for one election, while the later shows a single city's historical voting patterns.  CrazedElectron27 (talk) 05:51, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

• Option A. Election results information is as useful (if not more) on city pages as on county pages, where it is already established practice, and is essential to any "Politics and government" section on any political-geographic entity or community. It should generally be accompanied by detailed prose and it should generally be formatted to suit the article, but these are not reasons for its complete exclusion from any main article on a municipality. It already exists on a number of municipality pages, particularly in the Northeast, where municipalities are the basic unit of political community. @Ramos1990:'s comparison to "listing all city council members" is not apt, since this information does not "become[] obsolete fairly quickly" (or ever) and is not trivial/marginal to the political history of the community. It is the core summary of the political culture of the community. Of course, this should and can also be limited to municipalities which have their municipal-level results published and therefore have directly reliable sources. It should not be extended to permit original compilation of results from precinct data or partial sources. I firmly disagree with @CSGinger14:'s claim that "People vote based on what they encounter in daily life, and their most frequent encounter with administration/government is almost always going to be their county authority." In much of the country, Americans interact with government primarily at the municipal level, and some states have even abolished county government entirely. It is not, in fact, always more useful to look at political community at the county scale. Therefore, we should continue the policy of permitting municipal election results on the pages where it exists and for which the municipal data is explicitly published separately from the county results. -A-M-B-1996- (talk) 15:34, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose. When people look for info on cities, it is pretty much never about election trends. City pages are about history, landmarks, demographics, geography, monuments, arts, economy, environment, education, notable events and people, tourism, etc. Plus, people in cities vote on numerous other topics that have election histories (mayor runs, senator runs, representative runs, propositions, etc) - seems odd to only focus on one. City pages are not a place for WP:INDISCRIMINATE information on elections (WP:NOTSTATS). This causes bulky and choppy looking pages.

Current city guidelines related to government (Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cities/US_Guideline#Government) already state that election/government information should be limited - "Avoid listing all city council members, because this information becomes obsolete fairly quickly since a subset of the members typically changes every 1 or 2 years, wrong information is worse than not having it. Avoid listing the heads of every department, because this section is not a directory." This is wise advice to lean on in general politics stuff. I disagree A-M-B-1996- since with local election results on say mayor and city councils are more important than presidential results. But both do not add any useful information to each city article. No one cares about presidential election trends for 1999 or 1954 or 2015 at the city level.

If anything, an external link to an election results website is much more appropriate, if anything about elections histories is to be included, and will not take up much space. There people can click on any link and do as much research as they please without taking too much space on wikipedia. Ramos1990 (talk) 23:53, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

I'll make a quick point that in the guideline you linked about city governments. I don't see anything about elections mentioned, it seems to be just about the elected officials in city governments. The concern you quoted about outdated information doesn't seem to apply to elections, since not including the most recent election doesn't somehow make any other election results listed inaccurate. I do understand the arguments against my including the tables, so I just have a couple questions for you. Do you also believe that the tables should not be included in county articles, and if not then what is the relevant distinction between cities and counties to warrant the different standards? Also, how do you feel about me and CSGinger14's idea to have dedicated pages for including those tables for multiple cities? Thank you. CrazedElectron27 (talk) 00:27, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Oppose: My comment has been noted and I agree with those who have provided more detailed comments based on Wikipedia guidelines. While some have commented that they find the tables interesting, that is not a convincing reason to add this bloat. It is entirely different to create new articles while following the guidelines as that is encouraged and the welcome templates for new users include it. There is a difference between counties and cities but I wouldn't miss the tables if they were removed. Not being able to distinguish between cities and counties does not advance the argument to include them.

〜 Adflatuss • talk 02:49, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

I understand there are differences between cities and counties, but in my research of this issue I have not found any explanation of the distinction between them that warrants counties having these tables and cities not having these tables, considering how cities often have greater populations and political influence than whole counties. If anybody wants to give a distinction then I'll engage with it. But my current position until I am presented with arguments otherwise is that either both should include the tables, or neither should. That isn't an argument for or against the inclusion, it's just an argument for consistent guidelines on the subject for cities and counties. I do like the idea of creating new articles. CrazedElectron27 (talk) 02:55, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

@CrazedElectron27

That's because there are few places around the country where cities act as an independent unit of government. Typically, cities are simply organized as subdivisional units or townships under a county authority. They can stretch over multiple counties, or remain strictly localized to a particular county, creating separate 'cities', as opposed to neighborhoods, on the immediate outskirts of the principal city in many regions (e.g. Yonkers, New York, Evanston, Illinois, Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas, etc.). Thus the object of inquiry is the county's political trends as opposed to a jagged-edged municipality's. Presenting data at that level complicates discussion by ignoring the wider picture of how elections played out in the context of all the separate contingent pieces of that urban center. People vote based on what they encounter in daily life, and their most frequent encounter with administration/government is almost always going to be their county authority.

Think about how more than a dozen counties make up the Atlanta Metropolitan Area, with five of them at its core (although Atlanta-proper is technically the seat of Fulton County). Additionally, think of how much weight that metro area has in statewide elections. If we want to understand why a certain candidate won, or make informed predictions on whether or not another candidate will, we need to understand the differences between localities, which is difficult when the city is the default unit. Small towns and mid-level cities face the greatest challenge from this. The city-proper might have such-and-such a population, that voted in such-and-such a way, but then the count(y·ies)–with any number of other people residing between them in other townships and unincorporated communities–contain(s) 3-5x that number. If we want to know what's really happening on the ground, we need to zoom out and center discussion at the county level.

It may also not be practical nor functionally simple to find data at the city level, especially for rural or suburban counties spread out into numerous municipalities. Though results are sometimes compiled and presented by municipality by sources like The New York Times or Associated Press (or by initiatives like the Virginia Public Access Project), if only precinct level results are published, you'd have to consult extremely localized precinct maps and match them up to administrative boundaries, which can be a long and disorienting task. Thanks to the tireless work of a massive number of editors, we already have this data at the municipal level for a number of localities, which means that we simply need a place to put it.

A county may follow the same the voting pattern seen in the city, in which case their preferred candidate wins there by a landslide. But if this happens consistently, the county or broader metropolitan area may be cast as a monolithic voting unit, making city-specific discussion largely irrelevant to outside sources. If there's political competition at the county level due to socio-economic division, or diverging patterns of settlement (i.e urban / rural divide), city-specific discussion once again becomes relevant when discussed in relation to the county, district, or state's results. Thus they should only be presented (alongside or as a subset of county results) when relevant or when it is unavoidably necessary (e.g. state capitals, major cities, etc.) to do so.

CSGinger14 (talk) 05:01, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

That is a ridiculous opinion, Adflatuss. If people find them interesting, then they absolutely serve a purpose and should be included in the article. Your opinion that the tables are "bloat" is just that. You should not be able to start edit wars (in which you lie about how long ago the tables were added and act as if the consensus is that tables shouldn't be added) to try and force that opinion onto others Linkdog330 (talk) 14:56, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Please keep the conversation civil and focused on the subject. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with guidelines for content such as favoring prose. Being convenient for those interested or a good place to find certain data does not fall within guidelines that have been wikilink by several editors. While there has been lots of formatting comments, there is very little showing how these specialized tables benefit the general reader of Wikipedia. Wikipedia can not be all things to all people. 〜 Adflatuss • talk 22:25, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose - The election tables are unnecessary cruft, sometimes involving multiple political parties, which can be difficult to interpret. General historical voting trends could more efficiently be included as text. The table layout is often large and disruptive, and MOS:DONTHIDE prohibits them being collapsed by default. User:CSGinger14's suggestion to merge these stats into a central article was excellent. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:49, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

  The points brought up here seem to be false. I do not see how listing election results would be "unnecessary cruft", as it actually provides useful insight as to how a city votes without having to mix in other areas from the county. I also fail to see how they would be "difficult to interpret", as the tables are straightforward and well labeled. Furthermore, the claim that the tables are "large and disruptive" isn't true from the examples I have seen. They are, in my experience, basically as large as the population over time tables that most articles have. The only time this could possibly be an issue would be on a stub, but even then I doubt that it would disrupt the layout. To me, Option A is the most rational choice. Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopedia, deleting valuable information would go against that goal. Linkdog330 (talk) 16:02, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose - 1) Election tables in county articles are too long, thus causing layout problems. 2) Also, many of those county election tables are spam linking to a 3rd party website instead of an official government website. 3) For thousands of small city articles, adding another table will likely cause numerous layout problems because their articles are very short. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 22:27, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

• Option A. I think @A-M-B-1996-: summed it up better than I ever could. And I would further underline the point that in many parts of the country, the municipal level is more politically relevant and powerful than the county level. I would agree with their point that the inclusion of the municipal results should be limited to states that actually publish these results, which California seems to do. I'll end by repeating their point that "It should generally be accompanied by detailed prose and it should generally be formatted to suit the article, but these are not reasons for its complete exclusion from any main article on a municipality."

GigachadGigachad (talk) 03:30, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose Let's remember that the question before us is the "inclusion of presidential election history tables for municipalities" as described at the top. While options have entered the discussion with details that interest some editors, those opposing the question may choose to just have their original response to the question with extensive reasons for that decision be sufficient. 〜 Adflatuss • talk 05:07, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

If you are replying to User:GigachadGigachad, their proposal is no different from mine, since my original proposal also included the conditions that the data should be sourced from official election sources and that the page's formatting should remain proper. CrazedElectron27 (talk) 15:19, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

• Option A - As well as agreeing with the arguments @A-M-B-1996-: made, I think the county standard for elections should be applied across the board, for all municipalities. Having officially sourced data readily available would be great to have accessible. Often when I am looking up a city or municipality, I am curious as to their voting history. Spesh531^{(talk, contrib., ext.)} 12:56, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

• Option A - per many above, sadly a lot of people on this project seem to want every article to be a sentence and a half long. I can't see a single way removing this information benefits anybody at all, but many people obviously are likely to find it valuable. GreenMonkeyOrange (talk) 22:10, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose. There thousands of cities/counties/census designated areas across the country. It would be one thing to have the city data on the election articles, like the 2024 Presidential election in California article. However, the focus of the articles are supposed to be on the individual cities, not the elections. What does a city’s political history say about a town? That’s especially true if an article is scant on other details (which is the norm for smaller city articles). What does it mean for Orange County voting blue for the first time in generations, when it comes to the Orange County article? That same information could be better answered with more info about demographics, local economy, local transport, climate, recreation, and the other relevant details that describe a town better than a series of elections. If an article only has voting history and demographic data (the basic template for most articles), then it should be marked as a stub, and there should be an effort to put some real details into these articles. As much of a psephologist as I am, I would rather the articles focus on other aspects of a city. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:15, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. Cities are way more than just trivia like political vote trivia. City pages are about history, landmarks, demographics, geography, monuments, arts, economy, environment, education, notable events and people, tourism, etc.. We should not deviate from that focus and its why the city guideline already limit information on government to a small section. External links to election results would be better instead of wasting space on wikipedia IMO. Ramos1990 (talk) 06:05, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

• Option A Assuming the data is sourced. Using a collapsible table may remove other objections. It also may be more relevant for the largest municipalities. --Enos733 (talk) 03:48, 13 April 2026 (UTC)
• Comment The discussion here is talking about where to put the data - city article versus county article or another dedicated article. I want to point out that in the vast majority of US city articles there is no data. There’s a reason for that —reporting practices vary from state to state. Many states only report results at the county level. Other states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont) do report at the town or city level because those states make those local governments responsible for their election reporting. Alaska reports by congressional districts. Some states do additional reporting well after Election Day to further breakout results. California issues a supplement to the statement of vote around 120 days after the election which includes city level reporting.
  There are ~19,500 US City articles in Wikipedia. I sampled a bunch of them and most of them do not have information about voting histories or politics in general. On the other hand, the larger and more populous cities often do have a government section or a politics section that may cover notable sources about voting patterns. My point is that the city articles vary on what is covered for many reasons - population, availability of the data, sources that report on notable political topics.
  The Option A stance of "City results are preserved on their respective pages" should be re-phrased to consider whether we want all city articles to have election results on their respective pages when the data is available. The reason this discussion is happening is because @CrazedElectron27 wants to add election results to many pages that do not have them at all right now. -- E bailey (talk) 05:25, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Should we also have an RFC after this to explicitly get rid of the election tables? Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 15:37, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

• Option A, but... I am hesitant to adopt a strict guideline here. I would imagine any article on a city that's GA or especially FA-quality would include information about its politics. So this information clearly belongs in articles (or, if the article is big enough, split out as is done with Elections in the District of Columbia or Elections in New York City). That said, simply adding result tables to articles about cities with no associated prose is probably not the best use of editor time -- but a total prohibition on including/adding this information is a non-starter. Elli (talk | contribs) 23:03, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Second Phase of Discussion

Adding this here as initial thoughts appear to have largely been exhausted, given that now more than a week has passed since a(ny) substantive comment was added. If someone wants to provide a summation of arguments up to this point, it would be appreciated. CSGinger14 (talk) 18:54, 22 April 2026 (UTC)