Fox News' New Political Map Leaves me BLANK!

Fox News replaced their political map that I previously mentioned with a new interactive map that is so poorly conceived that it leaves me totally blank. In fact, most of the map is BLANK. Visitors to the website are confronted with a map of the US sitting on a background photo of the White House. There are no details associated with the map other than you can mouse over a state and, lo' and behold, you see...the name of the state! Then, as you click on a state, the only detail that you see are the county boundaries; everything else is just a blank map. Click on the county...again...blank. Try to drill down on the county...nothing. Data at the bottom of the screen reveals information from the 2004 presidential election only.

There are no interactive tools to predict electoral vote counts like at other news media websites. There is no way to thematically map the red vs. blue states. A box at the bottom of the screen allows the user to insert your zip code. I tried and it brought me to the county of that zip code. No zip boundaries; no election results from that zip code; not even 2004. In short, there is no purpose to that zip code box other than to get you to the county in which it is located.

Clicking on either the House or Senate races usually brings up a "No Data" notation at the bottom of the page except for some counties reveal 2004 race results. My only conclusion about this horrendous map is that it's in beta. That would be the comforting thought. Otherwise, my suggestion to Fox News is to take it down and start over.

Comments

Unknown said…
I think it's supposed to populate itself election eve, as the results come in......
November 3, 2008 at 2:35 PM
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