We compiled a list of 2016 Election maps you need at your watch parties tonight!
But each live election map displays voting results in different ways. So how do you read these maps? We’ll help you interpret the data and give you some context as to why you see different types of maps across different platforms.
1. Politico 2016 Presidential Election Results
The Politico 2016 Presidential Election Results map displays the legal boundaries of the states. The full-width map includes square icons for northeast states that can’t fit a label within their boundary. Clicking on a state presents a pop-up window that includes details like number of available electoral votes, candidate names, and percent of polling locations reporting.
Large swaths of color on this map may lead you to question election results. Why?
States are shaded with the winning candidates color, but population (and number of available electoral votes) is not reflected in the size of the state shape on the map.
You may see a larger area of shading across the map in the losing candidates color, but densely populated areas like the northeast provide more electoral votes to the winning candidate (although they look small on the map).
2. New York Times Presidential Election Results
The New York Times Presidential Election Results map is very similar to the Politico election results map in design, including coloring, projection, and layout. Note that the state labels on both of these maps are similar as well – both seem to follow the A.P. state abbreviation guidelines, although Texas is abbreviated on the NYT map.
You can zoom in and toggle between states, counties, and size of lead. The same opportunity for skewed interpretation based on shading (see Politico description above) holds true for this NYT visualization.
3. CNN Politics Election Results
The CNN Politics Election Results map is very different from the others – it is a type of equal area cartogram. The states are displayed as identical circles and are positioned using the relative spatial relationship between neighboring states.
This type of map is often used to combat the affect of color misinterpretation described above. It is an example of election map where states with lower population are displayed with equal visual weight.
4. ElectionLand Google Trends Map
The ElectionLand Google Trends Map is a compilation of contributions by more than 1,000 journalists across the country that visualizes timely polling information. You can select from 5 trending issues and zoom to the state level to see what people are searching in your state.
The brightly-colored points on the dark map highlight areas where trends are occurring live.
5. Final NPR Battleground Map
The Final NPR Battleground Map is an example of a cartogram that displays the winning candidate color (based on polls) proportional to the number of electoral votes for a given state.
Note that Maine and Nebraska split their electoral vote by congressional district rather than reporting electoral votes at-large. That’s why those states are displayed as multiple squares. All other states are displayed as a square sized relative to number of total electoral votes.
Our Own Map!
You can now type in your address and find your elected officials & districts by visiting live.cicerodata.com. This tool allows you to browse the elected official data that we compiled as part of our Cicero database. We recently expanded our team to make sure that our database is as current as possible!
Contact us to learn more about how you can use Cicero to create a custom tool for your advocacy group!
Check out our other work – we can help you build maps that help you reach your goals!