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"A collaborative political resource." |
Where do I get election statistics to enter?
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About Website
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For the United States, many current election statistics are available on websites of the 50 states. Be sure to find out if the votes have been certified or not. It is always best to enter certified results rather than unofficial results. Be sure to indicate where you obtained the votes that you post. That makes it easier when someone has different numbers.
Many state and county boards of elections have election statistics printed for distribution upon request. In some cases, this is the easiest way to obtain a given set of statistics.
For historic election results, the best results are the official, certified returns. They are often available from publications of the various states (such as the North Carolina Manual, Ohio Election Statistics, Number of Assessed Polls [MA], etc.).
The second best choice for historic election returns are compilations. Michael J. Dubin's book chronicling elections for Congress (1789--1996) is the best of these sources. He was very careful in his research, but we have noted a few errors which crept into his work. He is careful to indicate the date of the election, which is critical when trying to find additional information on a given race in a newspaper. A similar source of information is Richard Scammon's series entitled America Votes, which is printed every two years.
CQ's Guide to U.S. Elections is definitely a third choice for entering election statistics. For the most part, the book only covers races beginning with 1824. It also includes only those candidates who received 5% of the vote or more. Last, their numbers were collected in the 1960s, and they have not updated these numbers since that time to incorporate new findings in the various states. This last sentence might not seem important at first, but use it for a while and you will find out what I mean. There are a lot of better sources out there, so let CQ just sit on the shelf because it's not up to par.
Newspapers are the only source for some election returns. Try to find the report of the official canvass. Counties usually canvass one week after the election, and states usually canvass three weeks after the election. The board of canvassers (which may have a different name in your state) certifies the official returns. The chief paper in each state usually covered the meeting of the state canvassers and reported the official vote for each office. Sometimes newspaper articles provide important information which is not reported in the official publications.
News stories immediately following the election are less valuable. The telegraph made quick reporting of election statistics possible, but these returns are more likely to have mistakes than pre-telegraph coverage. However, for some races these initial returns are all that we have. News stories do give information on the candidates, which may be entered so that we have something more than just a name, party, and vote total.
Another excellent source for election returns are private papers of politicians. A particular politician in North Carolina attended the canvass of the votes for his congressional district for about two decades, and for most of those years his notes are the only U.S. House election information we have for his district. While this is a good source for information, in the long run it takes a lot of digging and may not be the best use of your time.
Other sources are usually not worth using. The World Almanac has had its times of better election reporting, and in fact during the early twentieth century there are several races in which it provides the only statistics available for some races. Don't use it (or other almanacs) after 1950, though.
Happy hunting!
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| Contributor | Chronicler |
| Last Modified | Chronicler - January 29, 2005 10:03pm |
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