Click on any county or state to load its results in the dynamic "scoreboard" (the table just below the map). To restore the statewide or nationwide results, click to the side of the map (or use the Show statewide/nationwide button that will appear in the upper right-hand corner of the scoreboard).
To see the combined results for multiple locations, select the first place normally and then add the others by clicking on them while holding down the Ctrl (PC) or Cmd (Mac) key.
To have the site calculate what the statewide or nationwide results would be if one or more locations were excluded, double-click on the counties or states you wish to disregard. The site will strike through the actual figures and show the hypothetical ones beside them. Note that any excluded places will appear on the map in dark gray:
To restore an excluded county or state, double-click on it a second time.
An election's standard map shows which candidate carried each county or state, and how convincingly. The color of a place (red, blue, etc.) indicates which candidate won a plurality there, and the shade indicates the approximate share of the vote that candidate received:
In keeping with the post-2000 norm, this site uses blue for Democrats and red for Republicans. For the earliest elections, it generally uses purple for Federalists and orange for the Jeffersonian Republicans. There have been other significant parties, of course—and occasionally elections have featured more than one candidate of the same party, a circumstance requiring improvisation. For the definitive, election-specific key to the candidates' colors, consult the party badges that appear beside the candidates' names in the scoreboard table.
An election's impact map shows each location's contribution (positive or negative) to the winning candidate's margin of victory. Where A is the winner of the election and B is the candidate who came in second, a place's "impact" is defined as the votes cast in that place for A minus the votes cast there for B. If the impact is positive, the county or state gets A's color; if the impact is negative, it gets B's color. Darker shades indicate impact values farther away from zero.
You can switch between the standard view and the impact view using the tab control above the map, but for faster switching between the two modes, simply double-click to the side of the map.
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