The United States is engaging in perhaps one of the most consequential elections of modern history, one which will mark the course of policy both nationally and internationally for years to come. Despite divisions within the nation and polarized views on a wide spectrum of issues, there is some consensus among the population on the importance of getting out the vote. The complexities involved in interpreting polling data and presenting results in real-time have been compounded by the restrictions imposed by the ongoing pandemic. Election maps will be featured throughout most media outlets as an effective method to interpret live election data for general viewers as well as more custom solutions to dichotomize results by geographic regions and specific data groups. This comes into play in the interpretation of the early voting results across particular segments of the population, which can serve as harbingers of tendencies within the overall vote. In particular, the results of the rural vote in certain Midwest states were determinant in the sway of the 2016 election. Some of these principles may hold true in the 2020 election and custom election maps play a useful role in extrapolating these cases from the live data feeds.
