Table 2 The variables in our datasets and their meanings.
Years | Name | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
all | precinct | The name of the precinct |
all | candidate | The name of a candidate who received votes in that precinct |
all | votes | The number of votes the candidate received in the precinct |
all | office | The name of the public office to which the candidate is seeking election |
18/20 | party_detailed | The full name of the candidate’s political party |
18/20 | party_simplified | Just the major parties, with others marked as “other” |
2016 | party | The party name, not split into detailed and simplified in the 2016 data |
all | mode | The type of vote cast, like “absentee” or “provisional” |
all | writein | Whether or not the votes are write-in votes |
18/20 | magnitude | How many candidates people can vote for in that election |
all | stage | The part of the election, like whether it is a general or primary election |
all | special | Whether or not the election is a special election |
18/20 | date | The date of the election |
all | year | The election year |
all | jurisdiction_name | Name of the next local government up (township or county) |
18/20 | jurisdiction_fips | The jurisdiction’s FIP Series (FIPS) code |
all | district | The precinct’s electoral district for that office |
all | county_name | The name of the county that the precinct is in |
all | county_fips | The county’s FIPS code |
2016 | county_ansi | The county’s American National Standards Institute (ANSI) code |
2016 | county_lat | The county’s latitude |
2016 | county_long | The county’s longitude |
all | state | The name of the state that the precinct is in |
all | state_po | The state’s official postal code abbreviation |
all | state_fips | The state’s FIPS code |
18/20 | state_cen | The state’s census code |
all | state_ic | The state’s Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research code |
18/20 | dataverse | An indicator cataloguing where we store the data in our public repository |
18/20 | readme_check | An indicator that an issue with the state’s data is noted in the README file |
2016 | candidate_normalized | Standardized candidate name (candidate is not standardized in 2016) |
2016 | candidate_party | The candidate’s official party (can be distinct from nominating party) |
2016 | candidate_last | The candidate’s last name |
2016 | candidate_first | The candidate’s first name |
2016 | candidate_middle | The candidate’s middle name |
2016 | candidate_full | The candidate’s full name |
2016 | candidate_suffix | The suffix of the candidate’s name, if they have one |
2016 | candidate_nickname | The candidate’s nickname, if they have one |
2016 | candidate_opensecrets | The candidate’s OpenSecrets ID |
2016 | candidate_wikidata | The candidate’s WikiData ID |
2016 | candidate_fec | The candidate’s Federal Election Commission ID |
2016 | candidate_fec_name | The candidate’s name as listed with the Federal Election Commission |
2016 | candidate_google | The candidate’s Google Knowledge Graph ID |
2016 | candidate_govtrack | The candidate’s GovTrack ID |
2016 | candidate_icpsr | The candidate’s ICPSR ID |
2016 | candidate_maplight | The candidate’s MapLight ID |
