Post random maps here

[minionofmidas]

First one is county won by the biggest margin. Second one is narrowest county.

[minionofmidas]

That's not random. That's a map of what Hawaii would look like if it looked like Switzerland.

[minionofmidas]

Can anyone guess this:

The 2004 election, where Bush wins the states in which he exceeded his national percentage of the vote, and Kerry gets the rest?

...plus with Ohio and New Mexico reversed just to make it harder?

[minionofmidas]

Shouldn't DC be its own colour? It's not as if the standard abbreviation was DOC.

[minionofmidas]

It's the first (or maybe second) round of the Atlasian 2005 presidential election.

Red: Lewis
Pink: KEmperor
Orange: Al

memories...

[minionofmidas]

Gray = Undeclared.  (Seriously, I couldn't find any record of Paterson's faith anywhere.)

Not sure if he's a member, but he got married and even sworn into office (both as Lt.Gov. and as Gov.) here.

[minionofmidas]

Wow, exactly right! 

I was very surprised to see that Kansas and Nebraska were not only not the flattest states, but weren't even in the same bracket as the several states that actually were flatter.

They are planes... they're just not parallel to the NN plane...

[minionofmidas]

No idea if this has been done before, but it should have been. DC and VT should be D>90. AL should be R>100.

[minionofmidas]

No idea if this has been done before, but it should have been. DC and VT should be D>90. AL should be R>100.

Something to do with state politics. Alaska would imply that it has to do with the legislature, though California nullifies that...

Nope. Wrong track entirely. This is about a presidential election.

[minionofmidas]

No.

2004 election.

[minionofmidas]

I'd guess it has something to do with the swing, though South Dakota kind of muddies that.

It does indeed have something to do with the swing. (And I've just rechecked SD, but it's depicted correctly.)

Last hint, because now it should be really easy:
Think about Alabama.

[minionofmidas]

Losers. It's the share of the increase in the major party vote, ie (for blue states):
(Bush2004-Bush2000)/((Bush2004-Bush2000)+(Kerry2004-Gore2000))

In Alabama, Kerry received marginally fewer votes than Gore.

[minionofmidas]

Colours are random and non-political but mean something.

See if you can guess.

There is one error on the map, Correze should be red. I probably gave part away.

Something to do with population growth?

No. It's political.

The map is political, the colors are not.

[minionofmidas]

Correct.

Mitterrand?

[minionofmidas]

The green states have none of something, the red states have only that thing, and the gray states have some of that thing. The map is apolitical.

Borders that run in straight lines?

Yes.

Isn't NJ's northern border is a straight-line and isn't most of SC's northern border also in straight lines?
And as Hawaii doesn't have any border, shouldn't it be green?

I made a few mistakes, of course.

Four of them, by my count: Hawaii should be green, SC, NJ and NM should be gray. (Yeah, NM has a tiny bit of non-straight line border near El Paso.)