US elections

[Gandhi]

Really interesting maps of American voting if anyone fancies a look.
The maps make it look closer than it was but obvioulsy its about the corresponding electoral points.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/po ... nties.html

have a look round the site too as its a pretty good newspaper.

[Martin]

Using the height to show the winning margin is a nice idea, but it's still largely the more populous counties (those with a major city in them) that show up rather than the ones with the biggest percentage margin.

Here's some maps that have been adjusted for the population density, and also with colours adjusted to show the winning margins:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/

[Gandhi]

nice one Martin, really good maps

[James]

the popular vote was something like 52% - 46% wasn't it? I would call that close .... electrol college bollocks aside, of course

[Gandhi]

Obama-64,058,708 votes 52.5%
McCain-56,499,933 votes 46.3%

7,558,775 votes difference

it is pretty close yeah really in the grand scheme but then again can 7.5 million votes be called close?....the population of Scotland is 5,144,200 then again Scotland pretty small. Maths hurts my brain...can't we get back to the pretty pictures of blue and red maps instead?