Gerrymandering: The Movie

Gerrymandering: The Movie

"Right now, across the country, our two major political parties are gearing up for a once-a-decade war whose winner will control Congress for the next ten years, and possibly more. There will be battles in every state, and each will be kept carefully hidden from the prying eyes of average voters who only become more disenchanted with their government with each meaningless election.

Democrats and Republicans collude to keep these skirmishes private so that they can maintain total control over the ultimate political weapon: the ability to directly determine the outcome of elections. Why bother stuffing ballots when they can just draw districts? For the first time, Gerrymandering exposes the most effective form of manipulating elections short of outright fraud. After the 2010 Census is finished, will you know where your district went?"

Name That Electoral Map

If you are an electoral map geek, like me, then you'll love the latest Sporcle Quiz: Can you name the U.S. presidents by the maps of their electoral college victories?



I got 100%...

Post-Mid-Term-Election Footprint Map

Editorial cartoon comment on the 2010 mid-term elections by Steve Sack:



Via Slate

Anyone seen any other clever 2010 map related editorial cartoons?

Gerrymandering

Last week, the New York Times offered a look at some of the worst Gerrymandered congressional districts in the United States. In most states, districts are drawn by members of the political party that controls the state legislature. The result is that "safe" districts are created for representatives; often drawn to include certain types of voters. The Illinois District 17, below, was drawn to include precincts that primarily vote Democratic, to insure that the Democratic incumbent will be re-elected.



After the 2000 Census, when Ohio had to lose a couple seats in Congress, Republicans carefully drew the lines of the 3rd and 8th Districts to dilute the votes of primarily Democratic Dayton, and ensure the election of Mike Turner in the 3rd, and re-election of John Boehner in the 8th.



The preliminary results of the 2010 Census indicate that Ohio will lose one or two more seats in Congress. The November state legislature elections will likely determine the fate of congressional districts in Ohio and many other states.

Via The Map Room

#680

The End of Electoral Maps As We Know Them?

In a move that could make the Electoral College (and electoral maps) obsolete, CBS News is reporting that Massachusetts may join five other states in changing the way their electoral votes will be cast in a presidential election.

Under the law, all 12 of Massachusetts' electoral votes will go to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes nationally. However, it will not go into effect until enough states have signed onto the plan to ensure that at least half of the nation's electoral votes -- 270 out of 538 -- go to the candidate who won the popular vote.

Actually, I like this idea, as it will make everyone's vote count, and reduce the clout that certain large and small states carry. But I would miss those 50 state colored maps.

2010 Election Interactive Maps

The New York Times has their 2010 Mid-Term elections interactive site in place. From here you can view all of the House of Representatives, Senate and Gubernatorial races in all the states and districts, as well as a calendar of all the remaining primaries, and of course results in November.



Most of the states and districts naturally lean towards Republican or Democrat, but several states and districts are still considered a "toss-up". Those will be the ones to watch.

Via The Map Room

#605

The Not Gay States of America

Tom The Dancing Bug asks, "If we don't want gays in the military today, how can we accept the results of having gays in the fighting forces of our past?"

Click for larger view

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Don't ask, don't tell, don't settle...?

Looks suspiciously like the 2008 electoral map...

Let Emily Explain the UK Elections

Yesterday, the United Kingdom's general election ended in hung parliament. No party achieved a majority of seats. As usual the BBC offers some very nice interactive maps to illustrate the election results, as well as an informative flow-chart to explain what happens next.



Optionally, you can click on "Proportional View" to see constituencies in equal size:



Or click on "Play Intro", to have Emily explain how to use the interactive maps:

50 Equal States

Tired of little states being over-represented in the Senate? Do you wish that all states had equal electoral vote power in national elections? Neil Freeman at Fake is the New Real has a solution. Redraw all fifty states so that they have relatively equal populations:



Interestingly, the only state that gets to keep most of its original shape is Missouri. Does that mean the Missouri already has the "perfect" population to represent 1/50 of the US population?

Via The Map Room

2008: The Year in Political Geography

Patrick Ottenhoff's political geography blog, The Electoral Map, was my favorite site this past year for electoral maps, county voting projections, and interesting commentary.

Here, he has pulled together a mappish Year in Review for 2008:

2008: The Year in Political Geography

View more presentations from PatrickOttenhoff.

Mapping the 111th Congress

FiveThirtyEight.com offers a nice cartogram of the new congress:



Not suprisingly, most states have some red and some blue. There are nine "all blue" states, and five "all red" states. However, while Oklahoma did allow one congressional district to go blue, the Oklahoma Republican Party was proud to point out, in their e-Christmas card last month, that they were the only state where every county went red for McCain:




HT to Patrick at The Electoral Map

A Ballot Buddy System

No, this has nothing to do with same-state marriage... Although these two would make an odd couple...



Randall Lane has an op-ed piece in today's New York Times about how to reform our electoral college system of electing a president, without amending the constitution.

Election theorists talk nobly of moving America’s presidential election to a popular vote, but that would require a Constitutional amendment. Swing states would never pass it, because it would mean giving up their influence. Neither would small states, which have a disproportionate influence in the Electoral College. But if every state apportioned its electoral votes as Maine and Nebraska do — one for each Congressional district, plus two for the overall state winner — millions more voters would suddenly become worthy of the candidates’ attention.

The way to make it happen, says Lane, is to get similar sized "red and blue" states to use the "buddy system" and take the plunge at the same time. That way, there would a less dramatic shift in electoral results. At least perhaps in the early going.

A change such as this would go a long way towards the ideal of truly having every vote counted and every vote courted.

#310

Last Word on 2008 Electoral Maps

The presidential electoral season brought so many interesting variations of the electoral map, I have resisted the urge to post them all here. So, as a goodbye to the 2008 election, I'll just post these two.

The Economist polled their world-wide readers: What if the whole world could vote in the U.S. election:


I suspect these results confirm the suspicions of both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats are pleased that we will have a president that most of the rest of the world likes, and Republicans see Obama as the favorite of terrorists and socialists... (Although, I'm not sure how that explains Cuba going for McCain...)

Leave it to The Onion to carefully explain the electoral results:

Purple States of America 2008

Mark Newman has already come out with his 2008 Election Cartograms. (Last year I highlighted his 2004 Election Cartograms.)

Take the standard electoral vote maps we have been seeing since election night, and adjust the shape and size of each state for population and you get this:



It gives some real perspective on the size of Barack Obama's electoral vote landslide. However, as we know, in many of these states, the popular vote was very close. Re-color the map to show how the counties voted; strongly for Obama is dark blue, strongly for McCain is bright red, and shades of purple for everything in between...



Once again, the nation is bruised, but carries on...

UPDATE

Declan Butler has his own calculations for a population cartogram. He also includes Hawaii and Alaska (that sort of looks like a squashed bug...)

Ice Electoral Map

Just as they did in 2004, NBC News turned the ice rink at Rockefeller Center into an electoral map:



A video can be seen here on Gawker.com

What Time Do the Polls Close?

I just love how elections produce all kinds of colorful maps!

Via The Daily Dish

Paint the States Red or Blue

With less than two weeks until the United States general election, cartophiles cannot help but be interested in electoral maps. Everywhere you turn every news source and blog is speculating on which way each state will go... red or blue. My favorite articles also use clever map graphics to illustrate their point.

Salon.com had two recent articles by Walter Shapiro, with "red or blue" paint illustrations.

Why is Barack Obama now electable? "From the youth vote to Sarah Palin's outdated embrace of the rural mystique, Salon's panel of demographers and consumer trend experts talks about how America is changing."

Turning Indiana blue "Put off by the McCain-Palin ticket, suburban Republicans are backing Barack Obama -- who might score a rare Democratic win in the Hoosier State."

It is also fun to speculate on different electoral outcome scenarios, including possible ties! CNN.com offers this interactive electoral map:



Other sites that let you calculate alternate electoral vote results:

270towin, Washington Post, Real Clear Politics

Campaign Ad Spending

Where are the candidates spending their money on advertising?

The New York Times has an interactive map that allows you to see just how much the Obama and McCain campaigns are spending in each market.



Obama appears to have given up on Utah and Idaho... and why is McCain spending any money in markets he has locked, or cannot be expected to win?

Via The Electoral Map, one of my favorite sources for electoral mapping and analysis.

What? There's another election going on in North America?

Last night, Steven Harper, and his Conservative Party, won a larger minority in the Canadian House of Commons. I don't pretend to know a lot about Canadian politics. When I lived in Michigan, and could listen to CBC Radio out of Windsor, I enjoyed following the ebb and flow of this multi-party democracy. In fact I envy the fact that Canadians actually have more than two real choices. I'd love to see a viable third-party in this country, but our system is rigged against it. (But that's for another discussion.)

Anyway... The CBC posted this excellent interactive map. It allows you to zoom in on the provinces and on specific Ridings to see how the vote came out in each individual MP race.



Even though Harper's party earned more seats in Parliament than last time, they still do not have a majority and must forge a new coalition with another party or parties. This may not be an easy coalition to hold together. We may see yet another Canadian election before the required four years...

Via The Map Room

Competitive Counties

Robert David Sullivan, from Beyond Red & Blue wrote an op-ed piece last week for the Boston Globe.

In "Changing the polarized electoral landscape" Sullivan discusses the shrinking number of counties that are truly competitive in presidential races.



The gray areas on the maps are counties with a margin of victory less than 10 points. The other counties went strongly one way or the other... I am skeptical about Barack Obama's campaign plans to redraw the political map with a "Fifty State Strategy". If he can do it, then perhaps we will see more gray on the 2008 Competitive Counties map.

What does that map say about who we are and where we live? does it mean that most of us vote the way we do because of where we live, or do we choose to live where we are surrounded by people that have similar political views?


#212