Product guide
Understand the major Akashic surfaces, what each is designed to answer, and where its data and limitations are documented.
Akashic is organized around places, elections, and the relationships between them. The same underlying records appear through several interfaces optimized for different questions.
Place pages
A place page is the canonical profile for one geography. It combines the available election record, demographics, map, provenance, related places, comparisons, and editorial context. Geographic tiers have different source depth and capabilities; a county page is not assumed to have the same historical or demographic coverage as a precinct-derived city or a custom Place.
Use the page URL when citing a place-specific figure.
Map
The Map is for spatial pattern recognition. Choose a geography and metric, then inspect the distribution rather than treating color alone as a precise value. Legends, classification breaks, missing-data treatment, and the selected year are part of the claim.
Data Table
The Data Table is for filtering, sorting, comparing, and exporting records across geographies. Column definitions and denominators come from the data dictionary. A displayed cap or formatting rule does not change the stored source value unless the field contract explicitly says so.
Political Twins
Political Twins compares voting trajectories across places. Similarity is a descriptive model, not a claim that places share the same causes, culture, or future. Review the methodology and comparison years before using a match analytically.
Compare
Compare places side by side using the same metric definitions. Confirm that the compared geographies and source vintages are compatible. A county and city can be compared descriptively, but differences in scale and data depth remain relevant.
Places
Places is the custom-geography workspace formerly called Canvas. A user can draw, generate, edit, save, fork, and share a Place. A Place may contain geographically separated components. Its rollup depends on the source units intersecting the saved geometry, and processing state must be distinguished from a completed rollup.
Legacy /canvas links redirect to /places.
Ask the Atlas
Ask the Atlas retrieves grounded material from the Akashic corpus and may synthesize an answer when the configured model is available. Treat the cited page or record as the evidence. Generated prose is not a replacement for the underlying source.
Elections and forecasts
The election archive covers presidential and supported downballot contests at their available geographic depths. Forecast pages are distinct from certified results. A forecast edition must be identified by publication or lock time; retrospective backtests are research and are not part of the public forecasting record.
Editions, embeds, and reuse
Editions preserve a dated analytical or publication state. Embeds expose selected live Akashic views on third-party sites with attribution. The citation guide explains which URL and metadata to retain.
Choosing the right surface
| Question | Best starting surface |
|---|---|
| What happened in one place? | Place page |
| Where is a pattern concentrated? | Map |
| Which places meet several conditions? | Data Table |
| What places moved similarly? | Political Twins |
| How do two places differ? | Compare |
| What does a custom region look like? | Places |
| What source supports this statement? | Place page provenance, data docs, methodology |
| How can I reuse the data? | API and data documentation |