Cartogram Map

http://politicalmaps.org/2004-presidential-election-maps/

Cartograms are maps where geographic units have its size and shape altered and distorted to reflect the magnitude of the variable being looked at, at a relative scale. Algoirthms create cartograms and are designed to maintain scale and position of geographic units as best as possible, given the inherent distortion this map type causes. The above map is a cartogram map of the 2004 presidential election results, using the colors to depict the magnitude of the Republican's success(in red) and where the Democrats held most of their power(in blue). We can represent the effects of the electoral college here by scaling down the sizes of the states to be proportional to the number of electoral results they received, which creates this cartogram and the distortion seen here as well.