The final map for the US election in 2016 is both the most accurate and the easiest to understand I've seen so far:
https://stemlounge.com/content/images/2019/10/muddy_america_...
In this map, saturation and lightness indicate vote density and color indicates the winning party, in each county.
IMHO, this is the kind of map that should be used by every media outlet to show election results.
I don't believe there is a Grand Unified Theory of Election Maps. Use different maps to convey different facets of information.
Like he said, "most accurate and easiest to understand". ;-)
This is a better representation of the map part, not an attempt at conveying aggregated result.
This map is useful in visualizing demographics and expected voter distribution. It's more valuable for showing election predictions than newsworthy results.
That only makes sense if a state's area is the same as the number of electors it has, which isn't the case.
If you want to show an electoral college map, you'd show each state in red or blue, with lightness based on the number of electors the state provides.
But, obviously, the intent of a county-level map is not to show electors, it's to show something about the demographic makeup of voter preferences.
Exactly: The map is meant to show "where the votes came from" without distorting any shapes.