Just looking at that "512 paths to the white house graphic", and I'd argue that it's more confusing than useful. Why is Florida at the top? Consider the point where it's "Obama has 255 ways" and "Romney has 1 way". What's the point of the massive arrow to Florida and then taking a very specific route to success? This would only make sense if there is a pre-determined order in which the results must come.
The way it's been done in the past in the UK, for instance, is "A needs X more seats to win, B needs Y more seats to win, Z more seats remain". Simple, clear, and no flashy graphics required.
I know the situation in the US is a bit more complicated with different numbers of representatives per state, but it's still not especially useful to prioritise one state over another in the graphic, because what's important is the relative difference between the totals so far received.
I get that there could be some more presentation towards uncalled results and the expected outcome, but it doesn't look like that graph gives that, which would be far more useful than this thing with arrows.
As you mention, the number of electors per state varies by quite a bit. E.g., in the 2012 election covered by the chart, Florida had 29 electors, Ohio had 18 electors, and North Carolina had 15 electors, which is why those three states appear at the top.
The main important effect is that (with only some small exceptions) if a candidate wins a simple majority of the votes in a state, then they receive all of that state's electors. E.g., if a candidate wins 50.01% of the Florida vote, they get 29 electors, but if they win 49.99% of the vote, they get 0 electors. See: the 2000 election, where the overall outcome depended on a few hundred votes in this way.
This means there's a lot of focus on 'flipping' states one way or the other, since their electoral votes all come in blocks. What the chart is showing is that if Romney won Florida, he could afford to lose a few other contested states and still win the national election. But if Obama won Florida (as he in fact did), then Romney would need every other state to go his way (very unlikely!) if he still wanted to have a chance.
That is to say, Florida really was extremely important, given the structure of U.S. presidential elections: it would make or break a candidate's whole campaign, regardless of what happened in the rest of the country. And similarly, the remaining states are ordered by decreasing importance.
Of course, while results are being counted, you also see simpler diagrams of the current situation. The classic format is a map of the country with each state colored red or blue depending on which way it flips. This is often accompanied by a horizonal line with a red bar growing from one side, a blue bar growing from the other side, and a line in the middle. But people are interested in which states are more important than others, which creates the imagery of 'paths to win'.
Except, in the extreme example I cited from the article: "Obama has 255 ways" and "Romney has 1 way"
At that point, Romney had to win every remaining state to win. Florida was no more important than any other state that still hadn't declared a result. Whatever one came next would determine the result.
I'd also argue that the point you're making is obscured by this image. There's no way of determining from that image how many electors each state contributes, just lots of arrows and a red/blue outcome. IMHO, how it was actually shown on news programs today is much clearer than what the article is proposing.
> At that point, Romney had to win every remaining state to win. Florida was no more important than any other state that still hadn't declared a result. Whatever one came next would determine the result.
When that diagram was created, the election hadn't even started yet, so they didn't know who would actually win Florida. The 1/255 number was contingent on Romney losing Florida (i.e., it was a hypothetical outcome the user could click through). But when they didn't know yet who would win Florida, it was still 76 ways for Romney and 431 ways for Obama.
Anyway, Florida was very important for the result regardless of the chronological order. Suppose that Florida's result was called first, in favor of Obama. Then one more state for Obama would seal the election in his favor, and everyone could call it a day and go home.
On the other end, suppose that Florida's result was called last, and Obama won at least one state beforehand, but not too many. Then everyone would have to wait for Florida in order to know the overall outcome: its result would be absolutely necessary.
> There's no way of determining from that image how many electors each state contributes, just lots of arrows and a red/blue outcome.
Well, if people really wanted to work out the math by hand, they could look it up. But states are called one at a time, so people are naturally interested in 'subsets of states' that can singlehandedly seal the election one way or the other.
The US news covers the US elections from a really strange angle. They act as though even as the votes are coming in, and there is nothing more the candidates can do to change the outcome, that they are still "looking for a path to victory" and they list all of the "paths to victory" that could be possible. As though we're watching them stumble through a dark forest.
The way it's been done in the past in the UK, for instance, is "A needs X more seats to win, B needs Y more seats to win, Z more seats remain". Simple, clear, and no flashy graphics required.
I know the situation in the US is a bit more complicated with different numbers of representatives per state, but it's still not especially useful to prioritise one state over another in the graphic, because what's important is the relative difference between the totals so far received.
I get that there could be some more presentation towards uncalled results and the expected outcome, but it doesn't look like that graph gives that, which would be far more useful than this thing with arrows.