Mark Newman, a physics professor at the University of Michigan, on the problems associated with a typical red and blue election map:
… the map fails to take account of the population distribution. It fails to allow for the fact that the population of the red states is on average significantly lower than that of the blue ones. The blue may be small in area, but they represent a large number of voters, which is what matters in an election.
We can correct for this by making use of a cartogram, a map in which the sizes of states are rescaled according to their population.
Newman’s county-level cartogram is especially nice.
(via: Dr. Randy Peppler)