Andy Tow at Media Party: Real-Time Election Coverage Through Data

At Media Party Buenos Aires 2023, political scientist Andy Tow reviewed his journey and methodologies for real-time election coverage. Recalling the beginnings of HackersBA in 2011, he explained how this civic initiative succeeded in visualizing live election results, marking the start of using data as a key narrative tool for politics.

To optimize this process, Tow developed a model that separates “fixed” data (geography, alliances) from “variable” data (live vote counts), enabling automated maps and visualizations. However, faced with a lack of open data in provincial elections, his team must rely on web scraping, PDF parsing, and reverse engineering to obtain the information.

This heterogeneity reflects Argentina’s federal nature, where each province manages its electoral processes independently. In the face of this fragmented and unpredictable landscape, Andy Tow emphasized the importance of flexibility and technical improvisation to unify diverse sources and build coherent, rigorous news coverage.

Don’t miss the full presentation! Watch Andy Tow’s Keynote at Media Party Buenos Aires 2023.