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Cast vote records: A database of ballots from the 2020 U.S. Election

Shiro Kuriwaki, Mason Reece, Samuel Baltz, Aleksandra Conevska, Joseph R. Loffredo, Can Mutlu, Taran Samarth, Kevin E. Acevedo Jetter, Zachary Djanogly Garai, Kate Murray, Shigeo Hirano, Jeffrey B. Lewis, James M. Snyder, Charles H. Stewart

Abstract

Ballots are the core records of elections. Electronic records of actual ballots cast (cast vote records) are available to the public in some jurisdictions. However, they have been released in a variety of formats and have not been independently evaluated. Here we introduce a database of cast vote records from the 2020 U.S. general election. We downloaded publicly available unstandardized cast vote records, standardized them into a multi-state database, and extensively compared their totals to certified election results. Our release includes vote records for President, Governor, U.S. Senate and House, and state upper and lower chambers -- covering 42.7 million voters in 20 states who voted for more than 2,204 candidates. This database serves as a uniquely granular administrative dataset for studying voting behavior and election administration. Using this data, we show that in battleground states, 1.9 percent of solid Republicans (as defined by their congressional and state legislative voting) in our database split their ticket for Joe Biden, while 1.2 percent of solid Democrats split their ticket for Donald Trump.

Cast vote records: A database of ballots from the 2020 U.S. Election

Abstract

Ballots are the core records of elections. Electronic records of actual ballots cast (cast vote records) are available to the public in some jurisdictions. However, they have been released in a variety of formats and have not been independently evaluated. Here we introduce a database of cast vote records from the 2020 U.S. general election. We downloaded publicly available unstandardized cast vote records, standardized them into a multi-state database, and extensively compared their totals to certified election results. Our release includes vote records for President, Governor, U.S. Senate and House, and state upper and lower chambers -- covering 42.7 million voters in 20 states who voted for more than 2,204 candidates. This database serves as a uniquely granular administrative dataset for studying voting behavior and election administration. Using this data, we show that in battleground states, 1.9 percent of solid Republicans (as defined by their congressional and state legislative voting) in our database split their ticket for Joe Biden, while 1.2 percent of solid Democrats split their ticket for Donald Trump.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 12 sections, 1 equation, 7 figures, 5 tables, 1 algorithm.

Table of Contents

  1. Variables
  2. Privacy Considerations
  3. Geographic Coverage
  4. Validation
  5. Reasons for Discrepancy
  6. Reading in the Data
  7. Application: Biden and Trump's Party Loyalty
  8. Fixing Fragmented Ballots
  9. Precinct Name Standardization
  10. Third Party Candidates and Write-ins
  11. Included Counties
  12. Extracting Summaries from the Data

Figures (7)

  • Figure 1: Cast Vote Record Example. An example of an actual ballot image (left) and the authors' representation of the associated cast vote record (right) in Wisconsin. Blank marks are recorded as an undervote.
  • Figure 2: List of Counties Included. For a spreadsheet version of this list, see file county_info.xlsx in our Dataverse repository. For a map of this list, see Supplementary Information D.
  • Figure 3: Discrepancy Rates. (a) number of counties by discrepancy. (b) distribution of discrepancies at the candidate level, limited to the neighborhood of 1 percent. (c) relationship between differences in total votes.
  • Figure 4: Precinct Level Validation. Comparisons of vote totals for each Presidential candidate at the precinct level, with those from a precinct-level databaseprecincts22 on the x-axis and those from our cast vote record database (with approximately matched precinct) on the y-axis. Axes are shown on a square root scale.
  • Figure 5: Reasons for Discrepancies. An example from precinct-level matches in Dane County, Wisconsin
  • ...and 2 more figures