2020 Election Resources
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The Election Influence Operations PlaybookFrom Defending Digital Democracy, this playbook includes guides that aim to provide election officials with resources and recommendations on how to navigate information threats targeting elections. It offers an introduction to Election Influence Operations: what they are, how they work, and why they can impact our elections. It also includes recommendations for reporting, responding and countering mis- and disinformation incidents around elections.
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BallotpediaProvides information on candidates including their records on major issues and changes in their campaign staff.
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FactCheck.orgMonitoring of the factual accuracy of statements by presidential candidates.
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Federal Election Commission - Presidential Campaign MapSearch presidential data such as money raised, money spent, cash on hand and debt.
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GallupPublic opinion polls and studies
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National Journal (Harvard Login)Data, charts, and analysis
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OpenSecrets.orgFundraising and financial disclosure information.
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Pew Research CenterPublic opinion polls and studies
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Politico Pro (Harvard Login)Articles and analysis
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An Extremely Detailed Map of the 2020 ElectionFrom the New York Times' The Upshot, an interactive map of precinct-level results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, including an option to compare changes from 2016 to 2020. The 2020 raw data is available on Github.
Federal Election Statistics & Data - Harvard Databases
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CQ Voting & Elections Collection (Harvard Login)Historical data on elections (presidential, congressional and gubernatorial), campaign finances, voter demographics, voter turnout, and political parties.
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Dave Leip Election Data (Harvard Login)Presidential county-level election results for 1912-2020.
U.S. Presidential Primary election results results for 2000-2020.
U.S. President general county level voter registration and turnout data for 1992-2020.
U.S. House of Representatives results for 1992-2020.
U.S. Senate results for 1990-2020.
Governor General County election data results for 1990-2020.
Federal Election Statistics & Data - Free Resources
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D3P's State by State Election DatabaseDataset from Defending Digital Democracy detailing the most relevant state-specific factors that describe the election process and may affect timelines for tabulating and reporting election results. This data set currently provides information on and analysis for state-specific regulations regarding: getting a ballot, return timing for ballots, ease of voting by mail factors, processing, counting, and curing mail-in ballots, early voting, provisional ballots, and canvassing and certifying results.
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Partisan Segregation ProjectMaps showing the segregation between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. for metropolitan areas and Congressional Districts. State voterfiles were used to map the location of every individual voter in order to calculate the segregation. Read the working paper for this project to learn more.
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270toWinMaps of electoral college votes back to 1789. Also includes voting history and trends by state.
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American Presidency Project: Presidential Elections DataPresidential election data from 1789-present.
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Election StatisticsOfficial state-by-state vote counts in federal elections from 1920 through 2018 from the U.S. House of Representatives.
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Electoral College Historical Election VotesView the electoral votes, popular votes, electors, and certificates of past presidential elections.
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Harvard Election Data ArchiveCore data for the archive are state, county and district level election returns for all recent state and federal elections in the United States.
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A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns, 1787-1825Data from America's earliest elections, between 1787 and 1825. The electoral data from the site covers offices from the United States president down to local offices such as alderman and county coroner.
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Voting America: United States Politics, 1840-2008Animated maps of presidential election data at the county level across time (actual returns, margin of victory, party strength, population, voter turnout).
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MIT Election LabElection-related datasets from both the MIT Election Lab itself and third-party contributors, with varying coverage ranges and levels of granularity.
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Election Data at KaggleOpen-access datasets about U.S. and foreign elections; formats, methodologies, coverage dates, and levels of granularity vary.
Election Turnout
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U.S. Election Assistance CommissionThe EAC studies election administration issues. EAC datasets for selected reports are available for download.
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U.S. Elections ProjectProvide timely and accurate election statistics, electoral laws, research reports, and other useful information regarding the United States electoral system with a focus on voting turnout.
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Voting and RegistrationInformation on reported voting and registration by various demographic and socioeconomic characteristics is collected for the nation in November of Congressional and Presidential election years in the United States Census Bureau Current Population Survey.
Polls & Surveys
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Pew Research Center - Elections & CampaignsPolls and studies back to 2002.
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Gallup - PoliticsPolls and studies related to U.S. politics.
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Roper Center for Public Opinion (Harvard Login)Includes the iPOLL Databank, a comprehensive, up-to-date resource for US public opinion poll data. Also, includes information about presidential and congressional election data including approval ratings.
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Cooperative Congressional Election StudyThe CCES is a 50,000+ person national stratified sample survey administered by YouGov. Half of the questionnaire consists of Common Content asked of all 50,000+ people, and half of the questionnaire consists of Team Content designed by each individual participating team and asked of a subset of 1,000 people. In addition, several teams may pool their resources to create Group Content.
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2016 Fox News Exit PollsFind polls broken up by state and various demographics.
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2016 CNN Exit PollsPolls can be broken down by state and various demographics.
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American National Election StudiesANES provides data on voting, public opinion, and political participation. Free registration is required to view and download data.
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Electoral Integrity ProjectA collaboration between Harvard & Sidney University researchers, this survey gathers data from 1,429 domestic and international election experts on the integrity of elections. The Year in Election 2014 data set includes 127 national parliamentary and presidential contests held from 1 July 2012 to 31 December 2014 in 107 nations.
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National Annenberg Election SurveyThe NAES examines political attitudes about candidates, issues and the traits Americans want in a president. It also looks at the effects of media exposure through campaign commercials and news from radio, television and newspapers and it measures the effects of other kinds of political communication, from conversations at home and on the job to various efforts by campaigns to influence potential voters. Surveys have been completed for the 2000, 2004, and 2008 elections. Researchers can request access to this data at https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/data-access/.
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PollingReportAggregates polling data from dozens of prominent pollsters.
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Real Clear PoliticsAggregates coverage of US National and State politics.
State & Local Data
Individual Board of Elections or Department of State websites can be excellent sources for the election results. These results can include general and primary elections for state and federal offices as well as municipal election data. County and city websites and public libraries should also be checked for results of local elections.
For Massachusetts:
- Massachusetts Election Statistics Online: a searchable database of Massachusetts historical election information contained in Public Document 43.
- Massachusetts Elections Division