I’ve seen a host of different ways of showing on a map what parts of the country voted for Obama versus Romney. The most common simply shows each state colored red or blue bases on which way its electoral votes went, but of course this fails to take into account population distribution or whether the state went overwhelmingly one way or the other or just barely. Other approaches use gradations of color and shade or map by county rather than by state.

Some of the easiest-to-grasp maps, at least in my estimation, have been created by Mark Newman at the Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan, and I recommend taking a look at them.

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