Political Science *

Listed below are resources about elections and links to organizations that study campaigns and elections.

• 270toWin -- this site combines an interactive Electoral College map for the then-current presidential election cycle with historical maps and information for all prior elections. Contains information on the Electoral College system and the integral role it plays in electing the President.
• A New Nation Votes -- a searchable collection of election returns from the earliest years of American democracy, 1787-1825. The data covers all offices from the Federal to the local levels and can be viewed from a complete list of candidates with links to their elections or by state, year, office, jurisdiction, party, or election type.
• American National Election Studies – an organization created in a collaboration of Stanford University and the University of Michigan that produces high quality data from its own surveys on voting, public opinion, and political participation. It conducts research on elections, produces statistical survey data from 1952 to the present, and provides searchable lists and abstracts for various election studies.
• Ballotpedia -- a nonprofit and nonpartisan collaborative digital encyclopedia that includes information about elections, politicians, and candidates at all levels of government. Data ranges from national elections and Congress to information about state executive officials, state legislatures, recall elections, ballot measures, and even local school boards.
• Ballot Initiative Strategy Center [BISC] -- a non-profit organization that serves as a resource for grassroots advocates and uses the ballot measure process as a tool for achieving progressive policy goals and political gains.
• CQ Voting and Elections Collection -- integrates data, authoritative analysis, concise explanations, and historical material to provide comprehensive information on the American voter, major and minor political parties, campaigns and elections, and historical and modern races for Congress, the presidency, and governorships.
• ElectionGuide -- provides information on national elections, breaking news on election-related laws and political developments, and election results and voter turnout from around the world.
• Election Resources on the Internet [copy and paste this link: http://www.electionresources.org/] -- this site offers detailed national and local election statistics, including sections dedicated to election results and electoral systems in diverse countries around the world. The site also has a useful directory of other election resources available on the web and maintains a blog that covers key elections worldwide.
• FactCheck.org -- this site monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of television ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases to increase public knowledge and understanding.
• ICPSR -- archive of social science data covering a range of subject areas including population, economics, education, health, social and political behavior, crime, aging, and substance abuse. Note that USC users will need to create an account from on-campus to download data.
• PARLINE Database on National Parliaments -- contains information on the structure and working methods of 262 parliamentary chambers in all of the 187 countries where a national legislature exists.
• PolitiFact -- a project of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies that assesses factual truth in American politics. Reporters and editors from the Times fact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists, and interest groups and rate them on a "Truth-O-Meter."
• Project Vote Smart -- provides backgrounds and records of thousands of political candidates and elected offices to discover their voting records, campaign contributions, public statements, biographical data (including their work history) and evaluations of them generated by over 100 competing special interest groups.
• Psephos [copy and paste this link: http://psephos.adam-carr.net/] -- archive of election data created and maintained by Dr. Adam Carr, a political and social activist in Australia. This is promoted to be the largest, most comprehensive and most up-to-date archive of electoral information in the world, with election statistics from 182 countries. Very good site to begin ones search for information.
• Statewide Ballot Measures Database -- a database of statewide ballot measures, including California. New measures are added as they are certified and identified by National Conference of State Legislatures. Results are updated soon after election night; each entry is then updated with “pass” or “fail." Users can search legislation for each year from the late 1800's through 2017 by state, topic, keyword, year, status, or primary sponsor.
• Voting America -- provides cinematic and interactive maps showing how Americans voted in presidential elections at the county level, from the beginning of the modern party system in 1840 to the present.

Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.