Commercial Voter Files and the Study of U.S. Politics
A new analysis demystifies voter files, the widely-used and comprehensive digital databases used to better understand the U.S. electorate.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
A new analysis demystifies voter files, the widely-used and comprehensive digital databases used to better understand the U.S. electorate.
Historically, public opinion surveys have relied on the ability to adjust their datasets using a core set of demographics – sex, age, race and ethnicity, educational attainment, and geographic region – to correct any imbalances between the survey sample and the population. These are all variables that are correlated with a broad range of attitudes […]
Despite the potential value of commercial voter files, they are hardly perfect. The imperfections stem from a variety of sources. At their core, the files are a compilation of official records from each state and the District of Columbia, with the addition of information about both registered and unregistered adults from other sources. But the […]
In recent years, the percentage of U.S. adults who say they regularly attend religious services has been declining, while the share of Americans who attend only a few times a year, seldom or never has been growing. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that the main reason people regularly go to church, synagogue, mosque […]