Follow the flow › Step 5 of 16 · Voting path
5. Citizen votes
Citizens choose who makes the rules. House members face voters every 2 years, the President every 4 years, and Senators every 6 years (about one third of the Senate each time). Federal Election Day is the Tuesday after the first Monday in November of even years. States set their own primary dates, and many state and local races are on the same ballot.
Who holds the money or the vote here?
The voters. Election results are counted and certified by county election offices and the Secretary of State.
How often does it happen?
Every 2 years (House), 4 years (President), 6 years (Senate); state and local terms vary; special elections when a seat opens.
Where the records come from
Federal data is the same for everyone. When you pick a state, the state and local rows are the places to look for your state. "Have now" means PSI Sci already collects it; "Planned" means we list the source but do not collect it yet.
| Level | Source | Format | How often | On PSI Sci |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Federal | Clerk of the House: election statistics; FEC federal election results | PDF/page | after each election | Planned |
| Federal | MIT Election Data + Science Lab (cleaned results, public) | bulk CSV | after each election | Planned |
| State | Secretary of State election results (example: the Texas one) | page/bulk | each election | Planned |
| State | Seats up for election (built from the congress-legislators list) PSI Sci builds this for every state | JSON | weekly | Have now |
| County | County elections office canvass (official results) tracked as todo rows us-county-elections | page/PDF | each election | Planned |
| City | City secretary canvass | page/PDF | each election | Planned |
| District | Results by congressional / legislative district (Secretary of State) | page/bulk | each election | Planned |
| ZIP | Precinct results (precincts, not ZIPs, are the smallest unit) Precinct-to-ZIP is approximate | bulk | each election | Planned |
See these sources as searchable records (rendered live).
See it on PSI Sci now
Variable names
| Variable | Federal | State | County | City | District | ZIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
election_year | fed_election_year | st_election_year | cnty_election_year | cty_election_year | dist_election_year | zip_election_year |
election_date | fed_election_date | st_election_date | cnty_election_date | cty_election_date | dist_election_date | zip_election_date |
citizen_vote_share | fed_citizen_vote_share | st_citizen_vote_share | cnty_citizen_vote_share | cty_citizen_vote_share | dist_citizen_vote_share | zip_citizen_vote_share |
votes_cast | fed_votes_cast | st_votes_cast | cnty_votes_cast | cty_votes_cast | dist_votes_cast | zip_votes_cast |
turnout | fed_turnout | st_turnout | cnty_turnout | cty_turnout | dist_turnout | zip_turnout |
winner_member_id | fed_winner_member_id | st_winner_member_id | cnty_winner_member_id | cty_winner_member_id | dist_winner_member_id | zip_winner_member_id |
IDs (like bioguide_id, bill_id, piid, zcta) have no prefix because they already say what they point to.