Yesterday the New York Times published an interactive map of the 2016 presidential election which succeeded inwards annoying a lot of cartographers. The NYT's Extremely Detailed Map of the 2016 Election allows yous to explore the 2016 presidential election at the voting precinct level.
The map is a slap-up tool for exploring how many votes were cast for each presidential candidate at precinct level. It also allows yous to run across at a glance which precincts overwhelmingly voted for either candidate. It does this past times shading each precinct past times the percent of votes cast for the winning candidate. The darker a precinct is colored ruby-red on the map thence the higher the percent of votes cast for Donald Trump. The darker a shade of blueish thence the higher the percent of votes cast for Hillary Clinton.
It is this alternative to shade precincts past times the percent of votes cast for a candidate that has upset a lot of people. The argue why many people are contention that the NYT map is misleading is because it places also much visual weight on the large rural precincts won past times Donald Trump as well as distorts the overall effect of the election. For illustration Jon Schleuss of the LA Times posted this straight comparing of the NYT election map alongside the LA Times Election map -
Both are maps of the same precinct degree data. However the LA Times map shades the precincts past times the issue of people who alive in that location rather than past times the percent of votes cast for the winning candidate.Therefore inwards the LA Times precinct election map to a greater extent than visual weight is given to precincts alongside the most voters rather than to the most partisan precincts. The effect is a much to a greater extent than accurate map of the issue of votes cast for each candidate inwards California.
If yous desire a detailed explanation of the problems alongside the NYT election map thence yous should depository fiscal establishment gibe out Kenneth Field's Cartographic Hyperbole post service of the map. Kenneth Filed's considered thoughts on election maps also characteristic prominently inwards the Wired's Is the U.S.A. Leaning Red or Blue? It All Depends on Your Map. The Wired article looks closely at how the dissimilar cartographic as well as information visualization choices yous brand tin greatly influence the story your maps tell. The article is illustrated alongside a issue of dissimilar maps of the 2016 presidential election visualizing the information inwards a issue of dissimilar ways.
The upshot of all this criticism is non that the NYT election map is wrong. It is but that the visualization choices made accept resulted inwards a map which could easily mislead users nigh the degree of back upward for the winning candidate inwards the 2016 presidential election.
