Where do Votes Matter Most?

Your voting power depends which elections you can vote in. In the United States, where you live determines which elections those are. This map models how voting power in federal elections has been geographically distributed since 1999.

The polygons represent areas that were in different congressional districts at some time. They were created by overlaying every congressional district map implemented since 1999. Voting data were then geocoded so that for each polygon, it is possible to see the outcome of every federal election in which someone who lived in that area would have been able to vote.

The "Overall Voting Power" fields are modeled utility values that represent total voting power. They are derived from the average margins in House, Senate, and Presidential elections. Both raw (# of votes) and proportional (% of votes) average margins for all three types of elections can be seen on this map. You can also see how redistricting affected the map by looking at which district each polygon was in at which time.

This project's GitHub repository contains a more detailed explanation of the methodology, a summary of the results, and the code involved in the analysis.