Week 2: US Presidential Election Map

My map of the 2008 United States Presidential Election:

Screencap of the NYTimes Interactive US Presidential Election Map:

Critique and three methods for possible improvement:

1. The labeling employed in the map could be improved in several ways. Firstly, it is inconsistent, where some states are abbreviated with their two letter postal code while others are completely spelled out. I understand some abbreviating is unavoidable because of space constraints, but I feel that the map would be clearer at a glance if the labeling scheme were more consistent so that potential viewers are not forced to decipher certain states while the complete names of others stare them in the face.
2. Secondly, the labeling of most of the smaller states in New England and the eastern seaboard are omitted entirely. This could be remedied by employing a zoomed inset of that particular region, or by placing the labels outside of the state (similar to the case of D.C.) and drawing lines that point to each state being labeled.
3. For the purpose of simply showing which states' electoral votes were won by which candidate, the map is adequate but may be misleading. If one were to view the map without any knowledge of how the electoral college works in the United States, one might conclude that the election was not as close as it really was. Information about the relationship (or lack thereof) between the physical size of a state and the number of electoral votes it receives is a potentially significant omission from the map. A number label to represent the electoral votes alongside the state label could be used, or sacrificing accurate physical representation in order to show a relationship between number of electoral votes and physical representation (i.e. relative size of state based on amount of electoral votes it's worth) could be employed.