[caspera]

How was this generated and what does it represent? I have difficulty believing Chicago and L.A. produced more Dem votes than NYC. Manhattan went 85%-15% for Kerry with 3 million residents or so, but it gets that (comparatively) little blue bar? And what is that huge red area in Arizona?

[Piranha]

I agree. The height of the Chicago blue column is much, much higher than the New York one. That doesn't seem right to me.

[El Gran Salseron]

Manhattan is not New Yawk city. Manhattan is only one of the five burroughs of that rat infested cesspool.

[Ichneumon]

How was this generated and what does it represent? I have difficulty believing Chicago and L.A. produced more Dem votes than NYC. Manhattan went 85%-15% for Kerry with 3 million residents or so, but it gets that (comparatively) little blue bar?

Looking at CNN's county-by-county results (below), it looks as if the explanation is that the NYC vote is fractioned among several geographically small, closely-spaced counties (Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Westchester, see here), whereas the LA and Chicago (Cook County) votes are each ALL stacked up in a single large county.

So the NYC vote is represented by five separate "columns", each about a fifth as tall as they would be if NYCity was encompassed by a single county.

Cook

Updated: 12:13 p.m. ET

1,389,631

70%

99% of precincts reporting

(Incumbent)

583,774

29%

11,103

1%

---

Manhattan

Updated: 12:14 p.m. ET

468,841

82%

100% of precincts reporting

(Incumbent)

95,362

17%

7,996

1%

1,344

0%

Calero

566

0%

---

Los Angeles

Updated: 12:14 p.m. ET

1,670,341

63%

100% of precincts reporting

(Incumbent)

954,764

36%

10,365

1%

8,974

0%

Peltier

7,089

0%

5,580

0%

---

[Dan from Michigan]

I'm fairly certain New York's five boroughs are counted separate.