boingboing map

[xatalantax]

a map showing the state breakdowns in shades of purple (proportions of red/blue voting)

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/11/03/purple_haze.html

Comments

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

and this one:
http://www.princeton.edu/%7Ervdb/JAVA/election2004/

the purple version by county.

[ayun.livejournal.com]

Awesome - that's the one I've been looking for! Seems like the split, though not as stark on the red/blue county map, does seem to exist at a somewhat local level, which is about what I expected. Clusters of deep blue, with bluish-purpley margins shading gradually to red clusters. Makes sense.

You know how GOTV efforts emphasize that local elections affect you more directly than federal ones, and how it's important to vote in them? I think the reason why a lot of people don't is that the real impetus for wanting to change the status quo really doesn't exist at the local level - people live pretty much in areas where they're in rough concensus. I think it was Socrates who cautioned against any democratic political entity larger than a certian number of people, and this seems like a good argument for why that's a sound warning.