Since none of us can escape election coverage, no doubt you’ve seen voter and poll data displayed on some unusual maps. 538 is showing electoral votes as a hex map (made up of hexagons) and the Wall Street Journal did the same as a tile map (made up of tiles, or squares). The general idea is that our traditional map gives a lot of visual weight to places that are geographically large, like Montana, even though there are few people and electoral votes there. By giving states the same size, visual interpretation is a little easier.

I created a Trap Map, where each state is a trapezoid. Also because Trap Map is a pretty cool name.

At my house, we have printed several trap maps and gathered our red and blue crayons to keep track as the election results roll in tomorrow night.

You can play along too. Download the Trap Map. I hear coloring eases anxiety.