Discuss:Government, Politics, Policy:2004 Presidential Election Results and Cartographic Visualization
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2004 Presidential Election Results and Cartographic Visualization
sunny - Fri Jan 7 22:08:27 2005
The results of the recent presidential election were fairly commonplace, the difference between republican and democrat victory just points from one another. However, most of the graphics that have been shown in the news over the last several months would have us thinking that the republican party has the entire nation. These graphics show the US states demonstrating the popular vote via opposing colors.
The visualizations provided by individuals (Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman) at the University of Michigan have better visualizations for the popular vote by state that more accurately depict the actual votes within each state and the weight of votes for the Republican and Democrat candidates.[1]
[ Edited ]
--sunny Fri Jan 7 22:08:27 2005
charmed_quark - Tue Jan 11 22:53:47 2005
I saw this when it was linked by /. and was surprised that it was interpreted with any significance. The undistorted map is only misleading if you think that the US is uniformly populated, and someone under that impression is unlikely to use the "inter web" or be persuaded by reason at all.
Slightly more interesting than geographic analysis was demographic analysis. It really puzzles me how supporters of a party will believe that their candidate is better in every way. It would be perfectly rational to say that candidate A is better at economic policy and candidate B is better at foreign policy and cast your vote based on your priorities. It actually seems less likely that one party is better than the other in every category, especially since neither major party derives its platform from a consistent set of principles. But for some reason the latter case is what most people believe.
Next election,please, consider voting for a third party.
Libertarian is my preference, but I also respect Greens. I have previously started a discussion of third parties here.
--charmed_quark Tue Jan 11 22:53:47 2005
Truc_Ha - Fri Jan 14 21:32:07 2005
As an aside, for multiple reasons I did vote for a 3rd party candidate, C_Q.
Reading this discussion, and having spent most of Oct-Nov in a small, rural, private practice that was full of election talk, I wonder at the low level of skepticism and analysis that people use on propaganda and advertising.
Take the statistics and the visual representations Sunny linked us to. I find them much more accessible and faster to read than so many tables on the demographic link provided. Still, I always look for how the information was gathered, specifically what information was gathered (for a blizzard of nonsense, look into how birth and death rate information is collected and note the changing denominators), what other information that seems necessary to interpret the information in context, and then I correlate with the interpretation. However, I have to wonder how many people do this two minute stop-and-think, and how many just swallow the interpretation down whole?
Same thing as C_Q mentioned with the candidates; they have many qualities and stances. Why is it that to so many their candidate is uniformly perfect and the other is uniformly covered in mud?
Perhaps my own sampling of opinion is in error. I was working with a lot of people with low socioeconomic status and a lot of TV exposure. Again, my question is: are most people's analytical machinery off?
--Truc_Ha Fri Jan 14 21:32:07 2005
