Does my new chart make sense?

[ciphergoth]

Imagine for a moment that it's 2:30 AM London time on November 5th and like me, you've stayed up late to watch the US elections. Six states have been called so far: Vermont and Virginia for Obama, and Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina and Kentucky for McCain. You go to my election page and see this diagram:

Does it make sense to you? How could I improve it?

thanks!

Update: wow, a flood of very helpful comments, thanks so much, keep them coming!

Comments

[clarisinda.livejournal.com]

I understand very little about the US election process, so I'm afraid that means very little to me :-/ Surely you would have an explanation as to what it represents?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

You need to understand the electoral college to have a hope of making sense of this diagram, I'm afraid!

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Um! Rotating 90 degrees? :)

*twists head*

[silkyraven.livejournal.com]

It makes sense to me.

[robot-mel.livejournal.com]

Is the line in the middle how many votes for the college they need to win? Also it'd be good to see the difference between suspected and confirmed. (Or am I just missing that?)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

States that haven't been called are in the middle; those that have are at the edges. Or do you mean something different?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Interesting idea! Any other votes for flipping the diagram to go the other way?

[hukuma.livejournal.com]

I would put a more clear separation between the called states and the uncalled ones. Also, I think you're using the 2004 results for colors, is that right? That took me a long time to figure out.

[andrewducker]

What it says to me is that two Blue states went Red. But then I looked at your explanation and now I don't understand why Virginia is red and all the way to the left in the middle of the blue states, when it hasn't been called yet.

I was assuming that the distance each one is to either side is the probability they have of falling either way - but that can't be the case (because of Virginia). I also don't understand why some are highlighted - I thought it might be "called" ones, but that also doesn't seem to be the case.

So some explanation would seem to be necessary.

[simont]

Without a key it doesn't make much sense to me.

The width of each bar appears to be based on that state's number of electoral college votes, which is also the number in parentheses after the state's name.

But then there are three separate things represented on the diagram which look as if they're related to which way the state votes or voted: the colour of the bar (blue or red), the height of the bar (and in particular whether that height is positive or negative), and the position of the state on the x-axis. Clearly all of these are largely correlated but not completely; so clearly they're all representing three correlated but distinct things. But which? Why do some bars have positive height but are red rather than blue? What's the significance of there being a couple of red bars on the mostly-blue side of the diagram?

[robot-mel.livejournal.com]

It's not obvious, as you'd have to know who'd called in to know where to stop looking. I think it'd be better if you could get that information from the chart.

[robot-mel.livejournal.com]

I think so, I'm craning my neck a little to read all the state's names.

[martling.livejournal.com]

It would help to ensure that the labels didn't cross the boundaries. I looked at your list and thought "wait, it looks like Oklahoma has called too?" before following the lines.

And what's with the blue/purple colour alternation when there's no such thing for the red?

[elfy.livejournal.com]

except iowa i get it.

[clarisinda.livejournal.com]

I've just read that, and it's still not clear to me.

What do the %s mean?
What exactly do the three vertical lines represent?
Why is Iowa (red) in the middle of the blue states?
When we are close to the point where one or other side wins, how is that represented visually? Is it going to be obvious at a glance who will win, or is that not the point of it?

Sorry if my questions seem naive to you!

[simont]

I think it's at least worth a try. Nice as it is to align the left/right political axis with the left/right coordinate axis, the combination of vertically printed state names and a picture slightly too wide for my usual browser window is a bit unpleasant.

[clarisinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought that too. Perhaps put the confirmed results in a brighter colour or something?

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

This would make an awful lot more sense if the axes and lines were labelled. As it is, it took me a good couple of minutes to twig what was going on.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Yes, 2004 for colours, polling data for the stuff in the middle.

A more clear separation - maybe a background colour thing?

[hukuma.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that might work well.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

In this scenario, Virginia has been called.

Vertically it falls into three sections - states called for Obama, states not yet called, states called for McCain. The height of the bar shows how much they favour one candidate over the other, either in final results or projected results, and the bars are arranged in height order. Probabilities don't come into it.

Iowa is red because it Bush won it in 2004. Colours alternate just to make the diagram easier to read.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Iowa is red because Bush won it in 2004.

[andrewducker]

Aaah, so colours are for the 2004 elections, and heights are for the current polls?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

It would help to ensure that the labels didn't cross the boundaries. I looked at your list and thought "wait, it looks like Oklahoma has called too?" before following the lines.

Unfortunately that's only possible if there's room to fit the labels for the called states in the space available for them!

The red colours do also alternate, but maybe it's more subtle.

[andrewducker]

Ok - I think I have it now.

I think I'd separate it into two graphs - "called" and "uncalled" - otherwise there's too much visual information comign across in one place, and it's not at all easy to extract meaning unless you've seen one of these graphs recently (I've seen one before, but not recently).