Mapping It Out

[ed. note: new info was added to this post on 11/10/04] Kerry supporters were no doubt dismayed at the great swath of red that appeared to cover most of the country on electoral maps during the election. This type of display is somewhat misleading given that Bush only won by a relatively small margin compared to the number of votes cast. The maps we saw on CNN an other news stations are misleading because they simply display area on the ground, and actual population concentrations. Some states with a lot of land are sparsely populated, and vice versa. Some guys at the University of Michigan have come up with electoral maps that give a more accurate visual representation of the voting tendencies across the country. For example, a here's a map that shows the voting results by county. Counties in which Kerry got 70% or more of the vote are colored blue. Counties where Bush won by a similar margin are red, and counties that were split are colored various shades of purple.

Obviously, the above map still is displaying area on the ground (in the size of counties) instead of in proportion to population density. So if you create a "cartogram" to display counties in a size proportional to their population density, you get something that looks more like this:

Of course, there are other ways of displaying the outcome of the 2004 Presidential election. Some people prefer to redraw established borders to create something new entirely: