It seems only fitting to post this message on the day that the USA goes to vote for the mid-term elections.  Which by either party has been labelled as probably the most important elections in the century.  Indeed, the Democrats claim that the very existence of democracy is at stake today.

See my January post on gerry-mandering, this ugly phenomenon of redrawing the district boundaries to take advantage of uneven spatial distribution of voters, and on how a democracy-by-name can really be a not-a-democracy-at-all.

Today I suggest you listen to a podcast episode of the famous This American Life, which just came out and presents the intriguing story of Ohio's election maps, a new law about it, the involvement of professional mapmakers and how it got implemented.  It's tight, it's ugly, and it's revealing.

This is a must-listen to anyone with an interest in map making and politics.

I better add here the link to that episode:  https://www.thisamericanlife.org/784/mapmaker