Open-Sourcing the U.S. Election

Here's an intriguing feature from the Economist, the formerly print-bound magazine that is moving creatively into the dynamic Web. Its "Global Electoral College" invites people in other countries to signal how they'd vote in the U.S. presidential contest. It presents a world map that assigns "electoral college" votes to each of 195 countries based on population. A "vote now" button lets people "vote" and then displays worldwide results on a map coded blue for Barack Obama and red for John McCain.

So far, the more than 12,000 votes cast overwhelmingly favor Obama. Only El Salvador leaned red when I rolled my mouse around.

But as with many interactive maps, this one makes it annoyingly hard to pinpoint smaller locations; I wound up clicking through to the text table to read a more informative explanation of country-by-country results.