Government, Voting & Polling Data Resources

Prev | Next

American National Election Studies: American National Election Studies 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. American National Election Studies is a collaboration of Stanford University and the University of Michigan, with funding by the National Science Foundation.
Budget of the United States Government: The Budget of the United States Government, issued by the Office of Management and Budget, is a collection of documents that contains the budget message of the President, information about the President's budget proposals for a given fiscal year, and other budgetary publications that have been issued throughout the fiscal year. Other related and supporting budget publications, such as the Economic Report of the President, are included, which may vary from year to year. Browse budgets from 1996 to the present, search budgets from 1997 to the present.
California Statewide Database SWDB Geography and Data: The California Statewide Database (SWDB), the redistricting database for the state of California, collects, processes and updates data for California state legislative and local redistricting. SWDB also collects redistricting literature and copies of cases that relate to redistricting and the census enumeration. The SWDB is housed at the U.C. Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
Congressional Budget Office: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assists the House and Senate Budget Committees, and the Congress more generally, by preparing reports and analyses. In accordance with the CBO's mandate to provide objective and impartial analysis, CBO's reports contain no policy recommendations. In late January of each year, CBO reports on the economic and budget outlook, including estimates of spending and revenue levels for the next 10 years under current law. This so-called budget baseline serves as a neutral benchmark against which Members of Congress can measure the budgetary effect of proposed legislation. Each year CBO provides an independent re-estimate of the President's budget proposals. This analysis is delivered to the Congress approximately one month after the President submits his budget. It permits the Congress to compare the President's spending or revenue proposals to other proposals using a consistent set of economic and technical assumptions. CBO analyzes specific policy and program issues related to the budget. Such studies explore significant budgetary and economic issues in greater depth.
Counting California: Counting California, funded by the California Digital Library, provides access to a broad range of historical and current social science and economic data produced by federal, state, and local government agencies. The Counting California interface allows users to collate and integrate data by topic, geography, title, and provider.
CQ Voting and Elections Collection: The CQ Voting and Elections Collection provides historical data on elections (presidential, congressional and gubernatorial), campaign finances, voter demographics, voter turnout, political parties. CQ Voting and Elections Collection includes analyses of elections and political parties, maps and district profiles and may be both searched and browsed. An encyclopedia provides explanations of over 200 campaign and election topics. A citation is produced for each data table created. Data can be saved, printed, emailed and exported. Coverage from 1789 to the present. The Maps section requires the SVG viewer plugin and Internet Explorer. (Harvard University ID and PIN required.)
Doing Business: Doing Business, produced by the World Bank, provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement. The Doing Business indicators are comparable across 175 economies. They indicate the regulatory costs of business and can be used to analyze specific regulations that enhance or constrain investment, productivity and growth. Use the Get Full Data link to create your own custom datasets. Use the Law Library link to locate business laws and regulations by country.
Economic Report of the President: The Economic Report of the President is an annual report written by the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. It overviews the nation's economic progress using text and extensive data appendices. The Economic Report of the President is transmitted to Congress no later than ten days after the submission of the Budget of the United States Government. Supplementary reports can be issued to the Congress which contain additional and/or revised recommendations. Download the entire report in pdf from 1995 to present, download statistical tables from 1997 to present, search reports and statistical tables from 1996 to present.
Election Results (U.S. President, U.S. Electoral College): The U.S. Electoral College provides access to historical election results including electoral votes, popular votes, electors, and certificates of past presidential elections.
Elections, Campaigns & Redistricting (State Elections): Elections, Campaigns and Redistricting, produced by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), tracks election and campaign issues in six major categories: redistricting, election laws and procedures, election results and analysis, term limits, initiative and referendum, and campaign finance. The NCSL provides comprehensive 50-state research and analysis on a wide variety of election and campaign issues.
Election Statistics (Federal Elections) Clerk of the House Election Information: Since 1920, the Clerk of the House has collected and published the official vote counts for federal elections from the official sources among the various states and territories. These documents, out of print for many years, have been collected and scanned in a format to make them once again available to researchers and students. Statistics from recent elections are available as both HTML and pdf formats.
Eurobarometer (European Commission Public Opinion Analysis): Eurobarometer provides access to surveys, qualitative studies and archives of the Public Opinion Analysis sector of the European Commission. The European Commission monitors the evolution of public opinion in its Member States in order to assist in the preparation of texts, decision-making and the evaluation of its work. Eurobarometer surveys and studies address major topics concerning European citizenship: enlargement, social situation, health, culture, information technology, environment, the Euro, defense, etc. See Public Opinion Links for a listing of social science data archives and opinion polling institutes.
FEC Campaign Finance Reports and Data Federal Election Commission: The Federal Election Commission (FEC), created by Congress in 1975, administers and enforces the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) which governs the financing of federal elections. The duties of the FEC, which is an independent regulatory agency, are to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections
Green Book: The House Ways and Means Committee Green Book provides program descriptions and historical data on a wide variety of social and economic topics, including Social Security, employment, earnings, welfare, child support, health insurance, the elderly, families with children, poverty and taxation. It has become a standard reference work for those interested in the direction of social policy in the United States. It is compiled by the staff of the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives. Search and browse volumes for 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2004.
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research ICPSR datasets at the DVN (IQSS Dataverse Network): The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), established in 1962, maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. The ICPSR provides training and user support to assist researchers in identifying relevant data for analysis and in conducting their research projects. A unit within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, ICPSR is a membership-based organization, with over 500 member colleges and universities around the world, including Harvard. A Council of leading scholars and data professionals guides and oversees the activities of ICPSR. All ICPSR datasets at Harvard University are maintained by the IQSS Dataverse Network (DVN). (Harvard University ID and PIN required.)
IQSS Dataverse Network: The IQSS Dataverse Network (DVN) is the principal repository of quantitative social science data at Harvard University. The DVN collections include data from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the Roper Center, the U.S. Census Bureau , the National Archives (NARA) and the Murray Research Archive. The DVN provides a complete open source, digital library system for the management, dissemination, exchange, and citation of ever-expanding types and quantities of virtual collections of quantitative data. (Harvard University ID and PIN required.)
LexisNexis Statistical: LexisNexis Statistical indexes and abstracts the statistical content of selected United States government publications, state government publications, business and association publications, and intergovernmental publications. The abstracts may also contain a link to the full text of the table and/or a link to the agency's web site where the full text of the publication may be viewed and downloaded. Use the keywords polls and/or surveys along with the subject keywords to locate polling data. (Harvard University ID and PIN required.)
Lijphart Elections Archive: The Lijphart Elections Archive, housed at the University of California, San Diego, is a research collection of district level election results for approximately 350 national legislative elections in 26 countries. The objective of the Archive is to systematically collect election statistics in as much detail as possible, including, as a minimum, the results at the level of the individual election districts in which votes are converted into seats. The Archive originally acquired print copies of the data and is now focusing on online data. The catalog of holdings details archive holdings of both print and online data as well as access to data when it can be freely disseminated. In addition the catalog links to other sources of online election data and information.
Mayoral Election Center: The Mayoral Election Center, produced by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, provides a database of 1999 to present mayoral election results. The database may be searched or browsed by city or date of election.
National Election Studies: National Election Studies (NES) conducts national surveys of the American electorate in presidential and midterm election years, and carries out research and development work through Pilot Studies in odd-numbered years. The NES time-series now encompasses 23 biennial Election Studies spanning five decades.Poll results on issues ranging from voting, public opinion, and political participation in the United States.
Pew Research Center Databank Pew Global Attitudes Project Datasets Pew Hispanic Center Datasets Pew Internet & American Life Project Data Pew Research Center For The People & The Press Data Archive: The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan fact tank, provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. The Pew Research Center conducts public opinion polls and performs social science research. The Pew Global Attitudes Project conducts a series of worldwide public opinion surveys on an array of subject. The Pew Hispanic Center, in seeking to improve understanding of the U.S. Hispanic population and to chronicle its growing impact on the nation, conducts social science research, including economic, demographic and public opinion studies. The Pew Internet & American Life Project conducts original research that explores the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press is an independent public opinion survey research project that studies attitudes toward the press, politics and public policy issues.
Polling the Nations: Polling the Nations is a comprehensive compilation of public opinion surveys, containing the full text of more than 350,000 questions and responses from 14,000 surveys conducted by 700 polling organizations from 1986 to the present in the United States and more than 80 other countries. Each record provides a question asked and the responses given. Also included is the polling organization responsible for the poll, the sample size and the date the poll was released. (Harvard University ID and PIN required.)
Public Opinion European Commission: The Public Opinion analysis sector of the European Commission monitors the evolution of public opinion in the EC Member States. Public Opinion surveys and studies address major topics concerning European citizenship: enlargement, social situation, health, culture, information technology, environment, the Euro, defense, etc.
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research Roper Center datasets at the DVN (IQSS Dataverse Network): The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research is the leading educational facility and archive in the field of public opinion. The Roper Center promotes the intelligent, responsible and imaginative use of public opinion and fosters increased international understanding through cross-national research. The Roper Center maintains the world's largest archive of survey data and strives to improve the practice of survey research and the use of survey data. The Roper Center preserves the data from polls conducted by many leading survey research organizations for the use of researchers, students, and journalists. Several thousand polls taken in some 70 foreign countries are also housed in the Roper Center archives. Roper Center datasets are made available to the Harvard community through the IQSS Dataverse Network (DVN). If a particular dataset is not available at the DVN, please email Numeric Data Services (NDS) to request the data. Harvard's Roper membership also provides us with access to the iPOLL database, a question-level database of U.S. public opinion polls. Currently, iPOLL is a librarian-mediated resource. If you would like to access the iPOLL database, please email NDS to schedule an appointment. (Harvard University ID and PIN required.)
SDA: Survey Documentation & Analysis: SDA is a set of programs for Survey Documentation and Analysis. The SDA Archive includes several datasets, including the General Social Survey (GSS) and the American National Election Study (ANES). SDA programs can produce codebooks either for printing or for browsing. The documentation for each study contains a full description of each variable, indexes to the variables, and whatever study-level information is available.
State Election Directors: A listing of state election directors maintained by the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED). Use a state's election director website to locate election information including election results for that state.
TRACfed: The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization associated with Syracuse University. TRAC's purpose is to provide with comprehensive information about federal staffing, spending, and the enforcement activities of the federal government. TRACfed provides a wide range of information about federal enforcement activities as well as detailed information about federal staffing, federal funds, and the diverse characteristics of counties, federal districts, and states. TRACfed data is organized into several modules including: Criminal Enforcement, Civil Enforcement, Administrative Enforcement, People & staffing, Money (Federal Funds), and Community Context. Access to TRACfed is controlled by HLS IP address and is limited to the Harvard Law School community. Off-campus access is controlled by HLS email username and password.
U.S. Congress Votes Database: The U.S. Congress Votes Database, produced by the Washington Post, provides data about every vote in the United States Congress since the 102nd Congress (1991). The U.S. Congress Votes Database is updated daily and provides an RSS feed of recent votes by each member of Congress, as well as a feed of the most recent votes in both chambers.
Voter Registration and Turnout Statistics: The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) provides national and state voter registration and turnout statistics for national elections from 1960 to present including demographic statistics on registration and turnout by age, race and gender from 1972 to present.
Voting and Registration: The U.S. Census provides detailed information on reported voting and registration by various demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The information is collected in November of congressional and presidential election years in the Current Population Survey (CPS). Estimates and projections of voting-age population derived from administrative records and Census 2000 are also provided.
World Factbook: The World Factbook, produced by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Intelligence, is a comprehensive resource of facts and statistics on more than 250 countries and other entities. The World Factbook was created as an annual summary and update to the National Intelligence Survey (NIS). The first classified World Factbook was published in August 1962, and the first unclassified version was published in June 1971. The NIS program was terminated in 1973 except for the World Factbook, map, and gazetteer components. The 1975 World Factbook was the first to be made available to the public with sales through the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). The online World Factbook is updated periodically throughout the year. Previous editions of the World Factbook are available for download in zipped html format.

Compiled and edited by Michael Jimenez.

Prev | Next