The President of the United States is elected based on the electoral college. Each state in the United States has a specified number of electoral votes. Typically, the candidate that wins the popular vote in a state receives all the electoral votes assigned to that state (a few states like Maine and Nebraska split their electoral votes among the candidates based on the results of the popular vote). Suppose that a polling firm would like to create a visual for an upcoming Presidential election to show the relative standing of the Democratic and Republican candidates based on the most recent projections for the upcoming election. The first visualization shown below represents a choropleth map based on the latest projections. States that are shown in light (dark) blue are considered slightly (solidly) Democratic states.

States that are shown in light (dark) red are considered slightly (solidly) Republican states. States that are shown in tan are considered to be tossup states that could be won by either the Democratic or the Republican candidate. The second visualization represents a cartogram where each grid shown represents one electoral vote. Electoral votes are based on population, not geographic size. Thus, large states (in area) with small populations, like Montana (MT), are large in the choropleth map but small in the cartogram (because they have relatively few electoral votes). Compare the choropleth map to the cartogram. What advantages are provided by the cartogram compared to the choropleth map?