Project description:

This project was a follow up on a map I designed as a response to Laura Trump’s “Try to impeach this” tweet (https://twitter.com/karim_douieb/status/1231216013313789955). The essay exposes alternative representations of the US election results which cover different aspects of it (popular vote vs Electoral College). The intention was to highlight the main issues with traditional representation. 

Impact reached:

It was phenomenal and I am not saying that to brag about this project. The impact of this publication was totally unexpected. According to the amount of likes the original tweet received it seems this resonated with a lot of people.

Techniques/technologies used:

The webpage has been developed in React (javascript framework). The visuals were implemented using the graphical library D3.js. I also used a bunch of other javascript libraries such as Turf.js (an advanced geospatial utility js library) and flubber.js (a tool for smoother shape animations).

What was the hardest part of this project?

The hardest part of this project was to make sure the people and the media who are using traditional maps to report on electoral results in a misleading fashion would consider other alternatives. I think this message made it through successfully as the main media targeted by this work, Fox News which is notoriously known to lie with charts on a regular basis, ended up publishing my alternative map (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/forget-traditional-election-maps-this-is-what-the-us-vote-really-looks-like). This was more than I would have expected, not only they received the message but also they seemed to acknowledge it.

What can others learn from this project?

This essay was precisely developped to educate mainstream media to be careful about the usage of traditional maps, i.e. choropleth maps, to report on electoral results.

Project links:

try-to-impeach-this.jetpack.ai/

twitter.com/karim_douieb/status/1231216013313789955