How is Philly voter turnout doing? Here’s what one live projection says

All you civically engaged Philly residents out there might want to add this website to your many open tabs: the Sixty-Six Wards turnout tracker.

First rolled out in May for the primaries, the site — built by urban demographer Jonathan Tannen on his blog — relies on voters’ self-reported ward, division, time of day and voter numbers, plus historic turnout data when there’s no voter data, to project how many Philadelphians will hit the polls this Tuesday.

As of 12:30 p.m., 599 voters in 45 wards had shared their voter number, leading Tannen’s projections to put the turnout estimates at 244,736. For context, with about seven hours of voting to go, Philly is already relatively close to its 2014 turnout threshold of just over 380,000.

Tannen himself took to Twitter to share more on what the purpose of the tools is:

Folks have asked about the point of the tool!

1 – It helps organize all of the tiny little data points in individual divisions to understand what the bigger picture is.

— Sixty-Six Wards (@sixtysixwards) November 6, 2018

2- the hard thing in that is knowing how all of the divisions are correlated. What does 20-person turnout in a grad hospital division mean in Juniata Park? I use historic data to figure out how correlated they are, and how they typically vote in types of elections.

— Sixty-Six Wards (@sixtysixwards) November 6, 2018

3- mostly, I hope this helps everyone feel excited through Election Day. Keep the conversation going! Get people paying attention.

— Sixty-Six Wards (@sixtysixwards) November 6, 2018

To help Tannen’s tracker, you can anonymously submit your voting numbers through this online form.

And as a reminder, for all official results and updates on the election, you can visit the Office of the City Commissioners website. An Election Day hotline is also available during voting; call 215-686-1590 to report issues.

For more Philly-made digital tools you can use on Election Day, go here. For a look at what local companies are doing to encourage participation, go here.

And if you already voted, share a voting selfie with us using #PhillyTechVotes.

🗳️ Did you make it to the polls yet? Show us your "I Voted" selfie and tag it with #PhillyTechVotes pic.twitter.com/CeaUPbY1bQ

— Technical.ly Philly (@TechnicallyPHL) November 6, 2018