Statistical Resources on the Web
Political Science

Comprehensive Sources

• Data on the Net (UC-San Diego)
  • Searchable and browsable data base of approximately 800 numeric data sites, data archives, catalogs, and commercial vendor web sites
  • All entries are annotated and provide direct links to the web site

• Gender Empowerment Index
  • Ranks countries on percent of women in professional, managerial, or Parliamentary positions as well as earned income
  • Part of UNDP Human Development Report

• Inter-University Consortium for Political & Social Research
  • Catalog and index to ICPSR's archival holdings of demographic, economic, health, and political machine readable data tapes
  • Many of the data sets and codebooks are available on-line
  • Links to U.S., international, and foreign data archives
  • Organizational information about ICPSR and its summer institutes

• International Relations Data Page (FSU)
  • Extensive annotations for international and U.S. data sets
  • Economic, political, social, environmental, and military variables
  • Sources include data sets from articles and books which would be otherwise difficult to locate

• Political Science Data (Richard Tucker)
  • Links to quality data sources for U.S. and international politics as well as economics and general social science research

• Statistical Universe (UMich Only)
  • Indexes and abstracts federal government statistics since 1974; business, association and state government data since 1980, and international agencies since 1983
  • Access through the Statistical Sources menu
  • Delimiters include Boolean operators and numerous proximity indicators, frequency, and comparative data (by city, by foreign country, by age, by disease)
    • Sample Search: presidential elections and by county
  • About 15% of the abstracts link to full text
  • For items not hot-linked:
    • Write down abstract number (e.g. ASI 1997 9391-7) and bring to the Documents Center for the microfiche version
    • Consult Statistical Universe Guide for various web searching alternatives and a Slide Show for further details

Campaign Finances

• Center for Responsive Politics
  • Non-partisan research group monitoring campaign reform
  • Congressional campaign finance filings
  • Open Secrets
    • Lobby group campaign contributions to Members of Congress arranged by industry and separately by member
    • Web version in Adobe Acrobat format corresponds to paper version in Documents Center (JK 1991 .M261)

• Color of Money
  • Ranks and lists states, counties, and the largest cities by percent of people of color
  • Tables list the number and amount of political campaign contributions, per capita contributions, and income
  • Does not provide data on the candidates to whom money was contributed

• Congressional Campaign Finances (Federal Election Commission)
  • List of all Senate, House candidates, and Presidential candidates
  • Summary of their receipts and disbursements since 1992

• FECInfo (Tony Raymond)
  • Presidential campaign contributions searchable by name, state, or Political Action Committee since 1991 and Congressional since 1993
  • Hard and soft money
  • Current campaign reports
  • User-friendly interface

• Follow the Money
  • Candidates for state office and their campaign contributors
  • Contributors by industry or special interest for a state

• Michigan Campaign Finance Reporting System (Secy. of State)
  • Indexes receipts and expenditures for gubernatorial, ballot, State and Congressional offices beginning 1998
  • All files are indexed by candidate name, party, committee, date, and amount
  • Receipts indexed by donor and location; expenditures by type

• Open Secrets
  • Detailed campaign finances for 1988, 1990, and 1992 elections
  • Doc.Cen. JK 1991 .M621

• Project Vote Smart
  • Extensive annotated links to other sources of Presidential and Congressional campaign finance information
  • Campaign finance data found under "Elected Officials" could be a little old

Elections

• 270 to Win
  • Map of electoral college votes since 1789
  • Interactive map of electoral college for 2004
  • Begin by viewing the map as neutral, with 2000 results, or imagined in 2004 (with red, blue and swing states)
  • Toggle to change the colors and determine a strategy

• ABC News
  • One of the few archived elections sites for the 1998 elections
  • Detailed vote counts for candidates and percentages
  • Arranged by Congressional chamber or state

• Almanac of American Politics (UMich Only)
  • Presidential election results for each Congressional District is found under the description of the district and its representative
  • See 2002 edition for original 2000 district boundaries; see 2004 for the 2003 district boundaries
  • Based on PoliData

• America Votes (Richard Scammon)
  • Votes for President and Governor by state and county beginning 1952
  • Votes for Members of Congress by Congressional District beginning 1946
  • Only available in paper copy: Reference Room JK 1967 .A1 A68
  • Two-year time lag between the general elections and publication date

• American National Election Studies
  • Prepared by the Center for Political Studies
  • Documentation on voting, public opinion, and political participation studies
  • Studies beginning 1994 are available via ftp for use with SAS or SPSS
  • Documentation in Word Perfect format
  • Its Guide to Public Opinion and Electoral Behavior provides summary data on social, economic, partisanship, and public opinion, 1952 to present
  • Voting Behavior: The 2004 Election (UMich Only) is a textbook with exercises on using Berkeley's Data Analysis Software to measure the 2004 results and voter characteristics
  • American National Election Study(UC-Berkeley)
    • Data files use software for easy tabulation
    • Search Example
  • American National Election Studies CD-ROM also available in the Documents Center

• Census Congressional District Data
  • Demographic, social, economic, and housing data for Congressional Districts
  • Most data for the 103rd Congress, 1993-94, but some data for those areas redistricted since 1993 as a result of court orders
  • Data found under "Summary Tape File 3D"
  • Corresponding printed version for 1990 Census in the Documents Center (HA 201 .1990-Ref); for 1980 in the Graduate Library stacks (HA 201. 1980)
  • Search MIRLYN for historical copies of the Congressional District Data Book

• Clerk of the House
  • Historical data includes national electoral college results since the 1st Congress, Presidential and Senatorial election results by state and House by district since 1920
  • Data on the political divisions in Congress since the 34th Congress

• CQ Voting and Elections (UMich Only)
  • Browse the Presidential, Congressional, or Gubernatorial sections by state to obtain county or Congressional District election data
  • Presidential by county: 1920+, presidential primary by state: 1916-24, 1972+; Congressional district by district: 1832+; gubernatorial by county: 1970+
  • Use the very small link on the bottom left frame of the main page to export or download data

• David Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
  • Maps and tables with Presidential votes since 1860
    • Maps outline state electoral votes
    • Tables show major and independent presidential and vice presidential candidates, popular and electoral votes, and percentages for both
  • County election data for 1912, 1968, and 1980-2000
  • County map of 2000 Presidential election popular vote
  • This is truly wonderful!

• Election Data Services
  • Includes 1998 voting equipment study showing voting equipment used by county, precinct, population, and registered voters in the U.S. (numbers and percentages)
  • Map of Presidential election results by county

• Election Day Exit Polls (Roper Center)
  • Sells CDs of detailed election polls from the news organization pools for 2000 (Voter News Service) and 2004 (Edison Media Research) plus provides some tabulations online
  • Detailed microdata at the national and state level includes Presidential and Senatorial choices, reasons for voting, and voter characteristics (age, income, religion)
  • Independent votes for Republican or Democrat
  • Documents Center CD-ROM (Docs CD-ROM Do258) has data in ASCII and SPSS formats for manipulation
  • CD includes national and state summaries for both years in pdf (e.g. religion cross-tabulated by preferred candidate but not religion by income by preferred candidate

• Election World
  • Schedule of Parliamentary elections by date
  • Election results and statistics by name of country

• Five Thirty Eight
  • Nate Silver's analysis of "big data sets" to predict elections

• Fourth National Survey of Religion and Politics
  • Data and analysis on how members of various religions voted for President and why

• Inter-University Consortium for Political & Social Research
  • American and foreign election studies and results appear under Archives/XIV.Mass Behavior and Political Attitudes
  • Many of the data sets and codebooks are available on-line

• Lijphart Election Archives (UCSD)
  • Extensive links to 350 national legislation elections in 26 countries
  • Includes Internet, print, and magnetic tape sources

• Michigan Election Results (MI State Dept.)
  • Statewide general and primary election data by district beginning with 1994
  • Data by district and county when applicable

• Most Liberal Cities (Bay Area Center for Voter Research)
  • Ranks 237 U.S. cities from most to least liberal (Detroit to Provo)
  • Released in August 2005 in Microsoft Word format

• A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns, 1787-1825 (Tufts/American Antiquarian Society)
  • Search for state, county and city election results for federal, state, and local officials, 1787-1825
  • You can search by combinations of states, candidates, office titles, dates
  • This is original research by Philip Lampi from a time when election records were scattered

• PoliData
  • Presidential election results by state, county and CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
  • Congressional district votes for president since 1992 are available as free .pdf documents; see the bottom of each state page found at: http://www.polidata.us/books/default.htm
  • Data also found in Almanac of American Politics

• Presidential Voting, 1844-1860 (By State)
  • State popular vote totals for all parties and vote total by state
  • Published by Furman University

• Presidents of the United States (IPL/Summers)
  • Extensive web site with pages for each President, Washington to Clinton
  • Includes election results

• Road to American Democracy, 1984-1990 (Harvard/MIT Data Center)
  • Variables include 100% population items from the 1990 Census (race, households, families) plus biennial voting and registration data, 1984-1990, for cities and townships
  • Registration and voting data by voting precinct, 1984-1990
  • Data may be downloaded in zipped format or searched on line and cross-tabulated
  • Reviewing the codebook (pdf or zipped format) is necessary to use the data
  • Data results in SPSS, SAS, STATA, and sometimes ASCII formats

• State Election Results

• State Legislatures (NCSL)
  • Partisan composition and number of women in state legislatures
  • Data arranged by state

• Turnout Files (Roll Call)
  • National voter registration and turnout for the 1992-96 elections by age, gender, ethnicity, education, and labor force status
  • Articles on voter turnout issues in future elections

• United States Electoral College (NARA)
  • Electoral college laws and procedures
  • Number of electoral votes per state for the 2000 elections
  • State-by-state electoral college votes, 1789-1996

• Vote of Each State by County for President, 1880
  • Appendix A (Section 23) of Vincent Cooke's Life and Public Services of Our Greatest Living Statesman, Hon. James G. Blaine

• Voter Registration, 1952- (National Election Study)
  • National level voter registration data at two-year intervals since 1952
  • Data by political party, income, black/white, education, occupation, and union membership

• Voting and Registration Data (Census Bureau)
  • Sociodemographic characteristics of voters (age, race, sex, employment, and education status) since 1964
  • Does not include who people voted for

• See also Foreign Elections

Human Rights

• Freedom in the World (Freedom House)
  • Rates individual countries on political and civil liberties
  • Textual essays and comparative statistics
  • Includes best and worst countries as well as those which have experienced the most change in the current year
• Press Freedom (Freedom House)
  • Measures political and economic influences over media content
• World Survey of Economic Freedom (Freedom House)
  • Essays and comparative country data on property rights, labor rights, free trade, and right to establish a business

Military Data (UMich)

• Correlates of War
• Military strength around the world
• United States military forces
• Data on international military operations

Public Opinion

• AllPolitics (Time/CNN)
  • Excellent coverage of elections and public opinion polls
  • Use search engine and type "poll"
  • Separate archive for 1996 Election Polls

• American Customer Satisfaction Index (UMich Business School)
  • Quarterly report since 1994 on consumer satisfaction with individual companies
  • Arranged by product or type of service with percent change over the previous survey and for the period
  • Satisfaction with local governments by type of service and type of area
  • Federal government satisfaction survey in 1999 arranged by agency, service, and type of consumer

• American Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy
  • Special survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
  • Charts and graphs on public opinion on national priorities, U.S. role in resolving world problems, major foreign affairs issues
  • Adobe Acrobat only

• American Public Opinion Index
  • Most comprehensive source for public opinion polls
  • Ref. Room HM 261 .A4631
  • Corresponding microfiche in Serials/Microforms as MICRO-F X423

• Canalipsos
  • European, international, and U.S. opinion on public affairs
  • Articles since 1997 include data in text
  • French language

• Election Day Exit Polls (Roper Center)
  • Sells CDs of detailed election polls from the news organization pools
  • The 2004 polltaker was Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International; the 2000 was Voter News Service
  • Detailed microdata at the national and state level includes Presidential and Senatorial choices, reasons for voting, and voter characteristics (age, income, religion)

• Fourth National Survey of Religion and Politics
  • Data and analysis on how members of various religions voted for President and why

• Gallup Organization
  • Summary results of most current public opinion polls
  • Gallup Poll, 1935 to present, also available in the Graduate Library Reference Room as HN 90.P9 .G18

• General Social Survey (ICPSR, NORC, UC-Berkeley)
  • Annual survey since 1972 of public opinion and lifestyle
  • Covers poverty, religion, contraceptive use, opinion on foreign affairs
  • ICPSR site provides background on survey as well as printed publications resulting from the survey
  • Primary data extraction available from ICPSR and UC-Berkeley
  • Computer-Assisted Survey (UC-Berkeley)
    • Data may be manipulated on-line
    • Quick start instructions for the initiate:
      • Choose Demonstration Survey Data Archive
      • Choose the survey you would like and the "browse" option; start
      • Choose "Alphabetical Variable List"
      • Choose your variables and write down their corresponding code names
      • Go back to the original screen and choose "run crosstabulations;" start
      • Imagine the output as a spreadsheet and type in the desired vertical and horizontal code names; also choose output as statistics or percentages
    • Example of General Social Survey
      • Percentage of Protestants who strongly agree with death penalty
      • In "run crosstabulations," type in "deathpen" as vertical and "relig" as horizontal; check off percentaging as vertical; run the table
      • Example of American National Election Studies

• Institute of Public Policy and Social Research (MSU)
  • Search publications by keyword for an analysis of current Michigan public opinion polls on policy issues

• Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security in post-Saddam Iraq (Brookings)
  • Troop deaths by cause, civilian casualties, Iraqi armed forces, insurgents, car bombs
  • Telephone subscribers, length of waiting time at gas station, internet subscribers, life expectancy, water and sewer connections
  • Also includes public opinion polls on U.S. occupation issues broken down by religion
  • Reports began in November 2003 and are updated weekly

• Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
  • Non-profit organization providing public policy information on issues affecting black Americans
  • Summaries of selected papers include public opinion polls on such topics as race relations, children, black participation in the Republican Party
  • Full text of annual report

• Kaiser Family Foundation Surveys
  • Surveys on American values, sex, health care issues, politics, and morals
  • Full text since 1996
  • Most in pdf format

• Louis Harris Associates
  • Public opinion results of last two months
  • Primarily government and economic questions

• Most Liberal Cities (Bay Area Center for Voter Research)
  • Ranks 237 U.S. cities from most to least liberal (Detroit to Provo)
  • Released in August 2005 in Microsoft Word format

• National Council on Public Opinion Polls
  • Principles of disclosure
  • 20 questions journalists should ask when reading poll results

• National Opinion Research Center (U-Chicago)
  • Home of the General Social Survey with links to data at ICPSR
  • Studies describes its economic, education, social, and health statistics programs
  • Studies and data on a variety of topics (guns, stress, abortion, smoking) appear in the Library section of the menu

• Pew Research Center
  • Text and statistics of U.S. public opinion polls on politics, public policy, and the press
  • Issues covered since 1995 include the Presidential elections, TV news viewership, Medicare reforms, campaign financing, churches, and the death of Princess Diana
  • Data on the public's attention to major news stories beginning 1986
  • Archive of files since 1985 available upon request

• Polling Report
  • Biweekly periodical with public opinion polls on politics, business, and culture
  • Examples include favorite actor of all time, the President's approval rating
  • Includes articles on public opinion trends by opinion analysts, pollsters and academics

• Polling the Nations, 1986+ (UMich Only)
  • Indexes public opinion survey questions in foreign countries
  • Choose data base; at the NEXT screen, type in keyword search
  • Searches may be refined
  • Data includes the full text of the question, brief results, and a citation to the article

• Pollster
  • Use the drop-down box on the right to choose presidential, congressional, or gubernatorial elections; then choose state
  • Provides the latest poll information on the candidates in chart form with a tabular format below
  • Also provides a multitude of links to the various polling organizations themselves

• Presidential Job Performance (Roper Center)
  • Public opinion polls on President Clinton's job
  • Separate charts from Gallup, Yankelovich, ABC, NBC, and CBS rate the President several times per year since 1993
  • Gallup ratings include begin with 1938 and rate president's since FDR

• Princeton Survey Research Center
  • Links to Internet sources on public polls
  • Information on conducting polls

• Public Agenda
  • Nonpartisan, issue-oriented think tank
  • Presents eighteen issues, including abortion, crime, gambling, immigration, internet privacy, social security, and welfare
  • For each issue provides background, links to lobby groups, a digest of news stories, basic statistics, and a variety of state laws
  • Numerous public opinion polls

• Public Opinion on Federal Legislation (UMich)
  • Additional printed sources for public opinion oplls
  • Lobby group opinion on current legislation

• Public Opinion Poll Question Database (University of North Carolina)
  • Data base of questions asked in the Harris, Carolina, Southern States, and All State polls since the 1960s
  • Searchable by subject, poll, and decade
  • Catalog provides additional information and often frequency distributions

• Public Opinion Quarterly (UMich Only)
  • Full text of scholarly journal analyzing public opinion worldwide
  • Searchable by keyword, author, journal, date
  • Part of JSTOR project
  • Public Opinion Quarterly Index is a free index, 1937+
  • Full text also in Graduate Library as HM 261 .A1 P98 with a backup on microfilm as FILM X375

• Pulse (Epinet)
  • Bimonthy web magazine focusing on one issue
  • Provides context to the public opinion polls and links to in-depth articles
  • As of May 1999, one issue devoted to Social Security

• Roper Center/Public Opinion
  • Primarily information about the Center
  • Searchable catalogs of its public opinion polls, the Latin American Survey Data Bank and the Japanese Survey Data Bank
  • Roper Center Codebooks available from the University of Michigan
  • Roper polls can also be searched in Academic Universe (UMich Only) in the Reference/Polls and Surveys section

• Russia Votes
  • Latest election results for President and the Duma
  • Public opinion polls on the elections
  • Also includes the latest polls on individual well-being, the nation, Chechnya, and international relations

• STATS: Statistical Assessment Service
  • Articles describe the leading statistics used in current newspaper articles
  • Collection dates back to 1997

• Vanishing Voter (Harvard)
  • Weekly poll on public interest in 2000 Presidential elections
  • Data and press releases begin with November 1999

• Washington Post
  • Public opinion polls on public affairs since January 1997
  • Subjects include Presidential popularity, sanctions toward Iraq, violence in schools
  • Descriptions supplemented by statistical tables
• Zogby International
  • Polling organization for Reuters news service
  • Web site has summary of the last week's public opinion polls
  • Search Academic Universe (UMich Only) under General News or Wire Services using zogby as a keyword for archival material

Voting Machines

• Accuracy, Integrity, and Security in Computerized Vote Tallying by Roy Saltman, 1988, National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 500-158 (Media Union Microfiche C 13.10 500-158)
  • Accuracy of various computerized voting methods
  • Recommendation 1.7 concerns the pre-scored punch cards (votematic) involved in the 2000 election
  • This 1988 report entered into evidence at the Leon County trial on recounting election results, December 2, 2000

• Accuracy, Integrity, and Security in National Elections: The Role of the U.S. Congress
  • Article presented by Roy Saltman in 1993 at the Third Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy
  • As described by author, article notes that Congress had failed to exercise legislative oversight on computers producing federal election results
  • Recommends application of the Computer Security Act

• Voting Equipment State Summary (Election Data Services)
  • List of types of voting equipment by state for the November 2, 2004 election
  • Does not include numbers just the existence of the equipment

Grace York, Coordinator, Documents Center
University of Michigan Library
Ankur Mehta, Documents Assistant, May 2002
Graphics by Sherry Piontek and Barbara Perles
Send comments and suggestions to AskUs

http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stpolisc.html

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