Additional Documentation for the SSDC Historical Elections Studies

Social Sciences Data Collection (SSDC)

Additional Documentation for the SSDC Historical Elections Studies:

PREPARED BY THE SSDC STAFF 3/30/99

The two major differences between the historical election studies are geographic levels and type of votes (party or candidate) cast.

The Historical Election Returns and General Election Data are county-level records (the geographic hierarchy is state, county and congressional district) that contain election results by political party for the offices of president, governor, United States senator, and representative. Also included are returns for one additional statewide office (usually attorney general or secretary of state) for those states that elected state offices in 1970 through 1990.

Users should note that the Early National period election returns (1788-1823) include town records for the New England states. Moreover, these early election returns are much less complete than the body of returns available for the years from 1824 to the present. Fugitive and nonextant sources resulted in the recovery of only approximately half of the possible returns for elections in this period.

The Candidate studies are person-level records that contain election results by candidate names. Congressional district data is limited to House elections and no county-level data is available. One additional statewide office (usually attorney general or secretary of state) is available for those states that elected state offices in 1970 through 1990. Users should note that the congressional district variable is also used for office sub-codes beginning with the 1968 elections.

You can use the following table to see variables that are available in each of the historical election studies. See the notes for more information about selected variable names and values.

STUDY TITLES AND VARIABLES	UNITED STATES HISTORICAL ELECTION RETURNS, 1788-1823 (ICPSR 0079)	UNITED STATES HISTORICAL ELECTION RETURNS, 1824-1968 (ICPSR 0001)	GENERAL ELECTION DATA FOR THE UNITED STATES, 1950-1990 (ICPSR 0013)	CANDIDATE NAME AND CONSTITUENCY TOTALS, 1788-1990 (ICPSR 0002)	CANDIDATE AND CONSTITUENCY STATISTICS OF ELECTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1788-1990 (ICPSR 7757)
Candidate Number (This number indicates the sequence of each candidate within each election for each constituency)					variable no.5, cols. 8-9
Year of Election. The thousands digit has been dropped from the code (e.g., 788 is 1788)	* (see note 1)	* (see note 2)	* (see note 2)	variable no.3, cols. 4-6	variable no.7, cols.12-14
Month of Election				variable no.10, cols. 28-29	variable no.11, cols.20-21
ICPSR State Code	variable no.1, cols. 1-2	variable no.1, cols. 1-2	variable no. 4, cols. 9-10	variable no.4, cols. 7-8	variable no.6, cols. 10-11
State/Town Name	variable no.4, cols. 11-27
County Name	variable no.4, cols. 11-27	variable no.2, cols. 3-19	variable no. 5, cols. 11-27
Identification Number (0001) or ICPSR County Code (0013)	variable no.2, cols. 3-6	variable no.3, cols. 20-23	variable no.6, cols. 28-31
ICPSR Town Code	variable no.3, cols. 7-10
Congressional District Number (see note 5)	varies by year of election, (see notes 1, 4)	varies by year of election, (see notes 1, 4)	variable no. 7, cols. 32-34	variable no.6, cols. 10-12 (see note 3; House elections only)	variable no.9, cols. 16-18 (see note 3; House elections only)
Office Code	*(see note 1)	*(see note 2)	*(see note 2)	variable no. 5, col. 9	variable no.8, col. 15
Office Name	*(see note 1)	*(see note 2)	*(see note 2)
State Office Sub-Code			variable no. 8, cols. 35-36	variable no. 6, cols. 10-12 (if office code=7, located in congressional district number variable field)	variable no. 9, cols. 16-18 (if office code=7, located in congressional district number variable field)
Election Type Code	*(see note 1)	*(see note 2)	*(see note 2)	variable no.11, col. 30	variable no. 10, col. 19
ICPSR Party Code	*(see note 1)	*(see note 2)	*(see note 2)	variable no.12, cols. 31-34	variable no. 13, cols. 30-33
Votes Cast for Party	*(see note 1)	*(see note 2)	*( see note 2)
Candidate's Name	*(see note 1)			variable no. 13, cols. 35-80	variable no. 14, cols. 34-79
Candidate's Vote Total	*(see note 1)			variable no. 9, cols. 20-27	variable no. 12, cols. 22-29
Asterisk = constituency-level data only				variable no.7, col. 13
Asterisk = No County-Level Returns for Candidate					variable no.4, col. 7
Congress to Which Candidate was Elected					variable no. 15, cols. 80-82
Total Number of Votes Cast for all Candidates					variable no. 16, cols. 83-90
Total Number of Candidates That Ran for Election					variable no. 17, cols. 91-92
Percentage of Total Vote Received by the Winning Candidate in the Election					variable no. 18, cols. 93-96
Percentage of Total Vote Received by the Runner-Up Candidate					variable no. 19, cols. 97-100
Margin of Victory in the Election					variable no. 20, cols. 101-104
Candidate's Percentage of Total Vote in the Election					variable no. 21, cols. 105-108
Difference in Candidate's Percentage of the Vote from the Percentage of Total Vote Received by the Winning Candidate					variable no. 22, cols. 109-112
Election Outcome - Did the Candidate of Record Win the Election					variable no.23, col. 113

NOTES:

(1) In the United States Historical Election Returns, 1788-1823 (ICPSR 0079); each party or candidate vote is a separate variable. The name of each variable may include the year, office code, type of election, office name, congressional district, party code and candidate name. The value of each variable is the votes cast for the party or the candidate. Note that when party codes are not available the vote total is for the candidate. Candidates names are truncated or missing when they exceed the length of the variable field.

These variable names look like:

816 3 M CONG D02 0012 IR
816 3 M CONG D02 GILBERT

The first variable name contains the 1816 congressional district 02 election votes for Old Republican party. The second variable contains the 1816 congressional vote for candidate Gilbert. The SSDC data subset forms for the variable names appear in variable pick lists, so users can browse and click to choose one or more variables by year, office, election type and party (when available) or candidate name.

(2) In the United States Historical Election Returns, 1824-1968 (ICPSR 0001) and General Election Data for the United States, 1950-1990 (ICPSR 0013) each party vote is a separate variable. The name of each variable includes the year, office code, type of election, office name and party code. The value of each variable is the votes cast for the party.

The name of one variable looks like:

966 2 G GOV 0100 VOTE

This variable contains the 1966 election votes for the democratic party governor. The SSDC data subset forms for the variable names appear in variable pick lists, so users can browse and click to choose one or more variables by year, office, election type and party.

(3) In the Candidate Name and Constituency Totals, 1788-1990 (ICPSR 0002) and Candidate and Constituency Statistics of Elections in the United States, 1788-1990 (ICPSR 7757), Congressional District data is limited to the House of Representatives elections. Users should note that the Congressional District variable is also used for office sub-codes with elections beginning in 1968. County-level data is not available in these studies.

(4) In the United States Historical Election Returns, 1788-1968 (ICPSR 0079 and 0001) there may be more than one congressional disctrict variable in each data file because each data file includes a range of election years. You can look at the SAS or SPSS data definition statements labels (LABEL) to see the variable number for a specific year. Look above the LABEL for INPUT and you will see the column locations for the variable number. Here is an example from the SAS definitions for California, 1938-1944.

INPUT
V4 = 24-25
V5 = 26-27
V6 = 28-29
V7 = 30-31

LABEL
V4 = "CONG DIST NUMBER 1938"
V5 = "CONG DIST NUMBER 1940"
V6 = "CONG DIST NUMBER 1942"
V7 = "CONG DIST NUMBER 1944"

(5) See The Historical Atlas of United States Congressional Districts, 1789-1983 and the Congressional District Atlas, 1964-current year for congressional district maps.

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