Political Science: Elections & Voting Resources

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.

DemocracyNet (DNet) is an interactive website designed to improve the quality and quantity of voter information and create a more educated and involved electorate. A project of the League of Women Voters Education Fund, DNet encourages candidates to address a wider range of issues than they might in other media.

E-Democracy.Org is a project of Minnesota E-Democracy, a non-partisan citizen-based organization whose mission is to improve participation in democracy in Minnesota through the use of information networks. It's Election pages are a non-profit, non-partisan starting place for elections information, announcements, news and discussions.

The statistics available at the FEC's site fall into two general categories: 1) those dealing with voting and voter registration, and 2) those dealing with the financing of elections. Voter turnout and registration statistics are available back to 1960, although the earliest data is not very detailed. Campaign finance reports and data based on legally required disclosures and filings are available for federal elections to the 1996 campaigns.

The data contained in the ELEC database includes information as reported by candidates and committees. Currently contains voter contribution information for Primary and General elections (1985-2003). Can be searched by contributor name, candidate or committee name.

opensecrets.org is a project of the the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan, non-profit research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics, and its effect on elections and public policy. The site provides easy access to campaign finance data for every member of Congress. You can search by politician, donor, state, zip code, industry or interest group. All of the data is taken from public records (e.g., reports filed with the Federal Election Commission).

Easy-to-use source of campaign funding information includes over a dozen databases you can use to search for the financial details about campaigns, candidates, donors, political action committees, parties, and foreign agents. Many of the links lead to official reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, although this site organizes paths to the information in a different way.

Nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded by the Center for National Independence in Politics (Corvallis, OR), Project Vote Smart's web site contains comprehensive and current information about election issues, campaigns, and candidates in both federal and state elections. Most candidate profiles include voting records, positions on selected issues, biographical details, campaign finance data, and performance ratings coompiled by major political interest groups.

WatchBlog is a multiple-editor weblog broken up into three major political affiliations, each with its own blog: the Democrats, the Republicans and the Third Party (covering everything outside the two major parties). The postings are archived and organized into topic categories.