Research Guides: Political Science: Elections & Voting

Elections & Voting

Studies in campaigns, elections, and voting comprise a wide range of issues. This section introduces important subscription databases and web resources for information on elections, parties, voter behavior, and campaigns. Here are a few tips for doing elections research:

Use a reference database such as CQ Political Reference for background information specific to
campaigns, elections, and voting.
Use official government sources such as the Federal Election Commission (FEC) website to locate financial information on political candidates, parties and PAC's.

Key Election Reference

CQ Press Electronic Library This link opens in a new window
CQ Press Electronic Library (CQEL) is a reference resource for research in American government, politics, history, public policy, and current affairs. Titles included are: CQ Almanac, Congress and the Nation, Guide to Congress, Guide to U.S. Elections, Guide to the Supreme Court, Guide to Political Campaigns in America, Guide to the Presidency, Historic Documents Series, Political Handbook of the World, Politics in America, Supreme Court Yearbook, Vital Statistics on American Politics and Washington Information Directory.

Elections A-Z
Provides information on U.S.elections including articles and histories of U.S. elections, political parties, voting and election concepts.
Exit Polls: Surveying the American Electorate, 1972-2010
Analyzes national election day exit polls from 1972 to most recent available.
Guide to U.S. Elections
Provides overviews and information of all aspects of U.S presidential, congressional and gubernatorial elections, including the history and evolution of political parties.
Voter Turnout in the United States 1788-2009
As the title indicates, this resource provides detailed statistics and data on voter turnout in the United States from the first elections to the most current.

CQ Congress Collection This link opens in a new window
CQ Congress Collection provides historical analysis of members of Congress, their legislative voting behavior, interest groups, and their interactions in crafting public policy.

U.S. Elections & Voting Data

CQ Voting & Elections Collection This link opens in a new window
CQ Voting & Elections Collection integrates a wealth of data, authoritative analyses, concise explanations, and historical material to provide a powerful research and reference tool on the American voter, major and minor political parties, campaigns and elections, and historical and modern races for Congress, the presidency, and governorships.

American National Election Studies (ANES)
The American National Election Studies (ANES) produces high quality data on voting, public opinion, and political participation to serve the research needs of social scientists, teachers, students, policy makers and journalists who want to better understand the theoretical and empirical foundations of national election outcomes. NOTE: ANES is not a source of factual population data on registration, eligibility, turnout, or vote.
Presidential Election Data
Established in 1999 at the University of California- Santa Barbara, this repository provides nearly 100,000 current and historical executive branch documents on American Presidents from 1789 to 2008. Site also includes election data and statistics from 1789 to current.
Roper Centre United States Elections
The Roper Center has made available its entire collection of Primary exit polls. Primary exit polls datasets include standard demographic makeup of interviewee and questions pertinent to the issues of each state.
U.S. Electoral College
The official government source for information on the U.S. Electoral College, the process through which the people of the United States vote for the electors who then vote for the President. Website provides detailed information on what the electoral college is and provides statistics and data on electoral votes, popular votes, electors, and certificates of past presidential elections.
U.S. House of Representatives - Historical Election Data
Provides statistics for official vote counts for federal elections from 1920 to the present from the official sources among the various states and territories. The original documents are available in scanned PDF format for historical data. Also available is the latest official list of nominees for the Office of United States Senator and for the Office of United States Representative, and the latest statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Elections of November.
Voters: Data and Analysis of Women's Voting Behaviors
Provides data and analysis of women's voting including listing of percentages of men and women voting in presidential and non-presidential years from 1964 through 2016 and voter registration numbers from 1984 through 2016. Also includes a break down of differences between men and women voting by racial category (1984 - 2016) and age (1996 and 2016). Also provides polling data from 2012 on differences between men and women on selected policy issues.
Voting and Registration
The U.S. Census Bureau through the Current Population Survey collects data on reported voter registration and voter turnout. The reports provide statistical data by turnout, age, race and origin.

U.S. Campaign Finance

Federal Election Commission (FEC)
The FEC is the official U.S. government agency that collects all financial information on candidates, parties, and PAC’s. Disclosed campaign finance information available includes: candidate, PAC, and party summaries; financial disclosure reports filed electronically by House and Presidential campaigns, parties and PACs; financial disclosure reports filed by House, Senate and Presidential campaigns; parties and PACs from 1993 to the present; data files including contributor, candidate, committee and summary data; disbursements /obligations for electioneering communications; reports of independent expenditures made and contributions received; and summaries of select Presidential filings.
Campaign Finance Institute (CFI)
A nonpartisan campaign finance policy organization established in 1999 to conduct studies and offer recommendations on campaign finance reform. CFI focuses its research on candidate and party fund-raising and interest groups spending. The Tables, Charts and Data section provides contributions expenditures and other cost data associated with federal elections including: House, Senate, presidential, political parties and interest groups.
Follow the Money
Developed by the National Institute on Money in Politics which tracks political donations in all 50 states. Website provides statistics, data and other information on money in state politics. Also provides a National Overview Map that gives a state-by-state summary of campaign finance information.
OpenSecrets.org
Developed by The Center for Responsive Politics, this website tracks money and its effects in U.S. politics, elections and public policy. OpenSecrets provides financial tracking for: Presidential elections, Congressional elections, Congressional committee earmarks, personal finances, outside spending and contributions to political parties.

U.S. Election Law

U.S. Department of Justice Voting Section
The U.S. Department of Justice is the chief law enforcement agency of the United States. Information in the Voting Section is primarily concerned with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which made it illegal to deny U.S. citizens the right to vote based on race or color. The website provides an overview of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as other voting related legal statutes enforced by the Department of Justice; updates on recent legal activity related to voting statutes; detailed history of federal voting rights laws including the effect of the Voting Rights Act; voting rights policies and guidelines; listing of cases involving voting litigation in the federal courts.
National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) - Election Laws and Procedures Overview
NCSL provides extensive lists of resources on election laws for the 50 states including information on laws associated with Voter ID state requirements, policies for election observers, poll watcher qualifications, and international election observation abroad.

International Elections Data

Comparative Political Dataset
The "Comparative Political Data Set" (CPDS) is a collection of political and institutional country-level data provided by Prof. Dr. Klaus Armingeon and collaborators at the University of Berne. It consists of annual data for 36 democratic countries for the period of 1960 to 2014 or since their transition to democracy.
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES)
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) is a collaborative program of research among election study teams from around the world. Participating countries include a common module of survey questions in their post-election studies. The resulting data are deposited along with voting, demographic, district and macro variables. The studies are then merged into a single public dataset for use in comparative study and cross-level analysis.
Constituency-Level Elections Archive (CLEA)
The Constituency-Level Elections Archive (CLEA) is a repository of detailed election results at the constituency level for lower house legislative elections from around the world. Our motivation is to preserve and consolidate these valuable data in one comprehensive and reliable resource that is ready for analysis and publicly available at no cost. This public good is expected to be of use to a range of audiences for research, education, and policy-making.
Database of Political Institutions
The Database of Political Institutions presents institutional and electoral results data such as measures of checks and balances, tenure and stability of the government, identification of party affiliation and ideology, and fragmentation of opposition and government parties in the legislature, among others. The current version of the database, which is now hosted at the IDB, expands its coverage to about 180 countries for 40 years, 1975-2017. Researchers at the World Bank Development Research Group first compiled the database in 2000 (see citation information below). It has become one of the most cited databases in comparative political economy and comparative political institutions. Almost 3,000 studies have used this database so far as a source of institutional and political data in their empirical analysis.
Democratic Electoral Systems Around the World
Dataset produced by Matt Golder (Pennsylvania State University) and Nils-Christian Bormann (University of Exeter) of legislative and presidential elections that took place in democratic states from 2001 through 2011. In addition to significantly expanding the size of the original DES dataset, the authors offer a simplified classification scheme for electoral systems. Detailed information is provided about all democratic elections since 1946, including the dates for each round of elections as well as the rules used in different electoral tiers. A brief temporal and geographic overview of the data is presented.
European Election Database
The European Election Database is specifically intended to provide election results on a regional level for European countries. As of November 2010, the database contains more than 300 datasets, covering most national elections held in 31 European countries since 1990. Datasets are available for the following categories: (1) Parliamentary (legislative) elections; (2) European Parliament elections; (3) Presidential elections; (4) Referendums related to the European Union; (5) and Combined country files for all parliamentary elections and European parliamentary elections held since the 1990s (available for selected countries).
Global Elections Database
The Global Elections Database (formerly known as the Constituency-Level Elections Dataset, 2007) provides information on the results of both national and subnational elections around the world. These data are presented at two levels of analysis, allowing users to quickly identify the results of elections within a country as a whole or within particular constituencies or districts of a country. All parties are included in the database regardless of the number of votes that they won. The data are based on countries' official election results and have been amassed from various government institutions. The Constituency-Level Elections Dataset was compiled by Dawn Brancati as part of her dissertation research.
IDEA - International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) is an intergovernmental organisation that was founded by 14 member states in 1995. The database contains regularly updated Voter Turnout figures for national presidential and parliamentary elections since 1945, as well as European Parliament elections (including Voting from Abroad). In addition it contains data on Direct Democracy, Electoral Justice, Electoral System Design and Gender Quotas.
Political Database of the Americas
Through its website the PDBA offers centralized and systematized information about institutions and political processes, national constitutions, branches of government, elections, political constitutional studies and other subjects related to the strengthening of democracy in the Americas. The full text of constitutions, election results, and rosters of political leaders (past and present) are available here.