Bob Stein - VisiBone wrote:Marximus wrote:Great idea, but it doesn't really tell the story. The people who did not vote at all should be represented, as well.
Great idea. I'd love to see ghost icons for
eligible voters who didn't vote. And for the even more ghostly
ineligible voters: minors, felons, illegal immigrants, aliens in area-51 cryovats.
Yes! I came to this forum specifically to make this suggestion.
- For eligible voters who didn't vote, I'd use dark gray. This population is a sleeping giant. Shows the potential to both parties of increasing turnout.
- For additional population not eligible to vote, I'd use light gray. These people do affect the electoral college representation.
- I'd add a few more light gray icons, not shaped like people, so that the total ink in each state is proportional to its weight in the electoral college.
The population of the U.S. in 2016 was 323.4M. So at the current rate of one icon per 250K people, showing the full population would take 1294 icons. Dividing these among 436 electoral votes (435 reps + 1 for DC) means almost exactly 3 icons per electoral vote. That doesn't yet count the extra electoral votes that correspond to the senators. So each state, and also DC, would get an extra 6 non-person icons.
The map would be a bit crowded by now. So I'd probably change to one icon per 750K people. Or better, one per 500K people and make the icons a bit smaller. Maybe show half-icons in the low-population states: there are 7 states with only 500K-1M people total.