Now that the election is over and there’s a bit more time, I can post some sketches I have been sitting on for a while. (Early disclaimer: sitting on them was as close to this content as I got – these are courtesy of Mike Bostock, Shan Carter and Amanda Cox. I’m just doing the manual cut-and-paste labor.)
This first sketch, from Amanda, was made with R, and it had been in her ideas folder for a while (more than six months, I think).
Some brief styling of that idea in D3:
Then, before eventually coming back to this concept, some experimentation with other forms:
Before honing in on their final idea:
And then just refining the view:
And here’s the final piece: