L.A. Times launches sharable electoral vote map

Which campaign will get to 270 in November, and how will they do it? The L.A. Times has built an interactive map that allows readers to create and test their own electoral vote scenarios, and then embed those scenarios in their own sites.

Sample electoral vote scenario: (not my prediction; just an uneducated guess for demonstration purposes only)

This is the creation of Sean Connelley, our Flash guru, based on our 2004 electoral vote tracker. The cool addition this time around is the sharing functionality.

We’re hoping to improve on this as the campaign heats up, perhaps adding demographic info and data on past elections by state. Would love to hear suggestions.

About Eric Ulken

Eric Ulken left his job as editor for interactive technology at the Los Angeles Times in November 2008 to travel and report on trends and best practices in online journalism. He is a 2005 graduate of the communication management M.A. program at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, where he was an editor and producer for OJR and Japan Media Review. He has been a web monkey at newsrooms in six states, including his native Louisiana.

Comments

  1. I’d love to see this hooked up with recent polling data as the default, rather than 2004 results (though that could be another option for readers to play with.)

    Of course, that would make this crack even more addictive to political junkies like me than it is already. Thanks, guys; thanks a lot. This is going to kill waaay too many hours of my days between now and November. 😉

  2. 208.54.15.13 says:

    We just updated the main map to show victory margins by state in the last four elections. We’ve talked about adding polling data, but the problem is that it’s hard to judge which polls are sufficiently credible — and because some states have very little polling activity, we don’t want to risk leaving people with an inaccurate impression. Plus, we value your time, Robert Niles, and we wouldn’t want to suck up too much of it. 🙂