United States presidential elections are quadrennial elections that decide who will be the President and Vice President of the United States for the next four years. Voter turnout has ranged between 54 and 70 percent since 1964, with white voters having the highest voter turnout rate (particularly when those of Hispanic descent are excluded). In recent decades, turnout among black voters has got much closer to the national average, and in 2008 and 2012, the turnout among black voters was higher than the national average, exceeded only by non-Hispanic white voters; this has been attributed to Barack Obama's nomination as the Democratic nominee in these years, where he was the first African American candidate to run as a major party's nominee. Turnout among Asian and Hispanic voters is much lower than the national average, and turnout has even been below half of the national average in some elections. This has been attributed to a variety of factors, such as the absence of voting tradition in some communities or families, the concentration of Asian and Hispanic communities in urban (non-swing) areas, and a disproportionate number of young people (who are less likely to vote).

This web map displays data from the voter registration database as the percent of registered voters by census tract in King County, Washington. The data for this web map is compiled from King County Elections voter registration data for the years 2013-2019. The total number of registered voters is based on the geo-location of the voter's registered address at the time of the general election for each year. The eligible voting population, age 18 and over, is based on the estimated population increase from the US Census Bureau and the Washington Office of Financial Management and was calculated as a projected 6 percent population increase for the years 2010-2013, 7 percent population increase for the years 2010-2014, 9 percent population increase for the years 2010-2015, 11 percent population increase for the years 2010-2016 & 2017, 14 percent population increase for the years 2010-2018 and 17 percent population increase for the years 2010-2019. The total population 18 and over in 2010 was 1,517,747 in King County, Washington. The percentage of registered voters represents the number of people who are registered to vote as compared to the eligible voting population, age 18 and over. The voter registration data by census tract was grouped into six percentage range estimates: 50% or below, 51-60%, 61-70%, 71-80%, 81-90% and 91% or above with an overall 84 percent registration rate. In the map the lighter colors represent a relatively low percentage range of voter registration and the darker colors represent a relatively high percentage range of voter registration. PDF maps of these data can be viewed at King County Elections downloadable voter registration maps. The 2019 General Election Voter Turnout layer is voter turnout data by historical precinct boundaries for the corresponding year. The data is grouped into six percentage ranges: 0-30%, 31-40%, 41-50% 51-60%, 61-70%, and 71-100%. The lighter colors represent lower turnout and the darker colors represent higher turnout. The King County Demographics Layer is census data for language, income, poverty, race and ethnicity at the census tract level and is based on the 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5 year Average provided by the United States Census Bureau. Since the data is based on a survey, they are considered to be estimates and should be used with that understanding. The demographic data sets were developed and are maintained by King County Staff to support the King County Equity and Social Justice program. Other data for this map is located in the King County GIS Spatial Data Catalog, where data is managed by the King County GIS Center, a multi-department enterprise GIS in King County, Washington. King County has nearly 1.3 million registered voters and is the largest jurisdiction in the United States to conduct all elections by mail. In the map you can view the percent of registered voters by census tract, compare registration within political districts, compare registration and demographic data, verify your voter registration or register to vote through a link to the VoteWA, Washington State Online Voter Registration web page.

Abstract

The L2 Voter and Demographic Dataset includes demographic and voter history tables for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The dataset is built from publicly available government records about voter registration and election participation. These records indicate whether a person voted in an election or not, but they do not record whom that person voted for. Voter registration and election participation data are augmented by demographic information from outside data sources.

The L2 Voter and Demographic Dataset is current as of April 7 2025.

Methodology

To create this file, L2 processes registered voter data on an ongoing basis for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with refreshes of the underlying state voter data typically at least every six months and refreshes of telephone numbers and National Change of Address processing approximately every 30 to 60 days. These data are standardized and enhanced with propriety commercial data and modeling codes and consist of approximately 185,000,000 records nationwide.

Usage

For each state, there are two available tables: demographic and voter history. The demographic and voter tables can be joined on the LALVOTERIDvariable. One can also use the LALVOTERIDvariable to link the L2 Voter and Demographic Dataset with the L2 Consumer Dataset.

In addition, the LALVOTERIDvariable can be used to validate the state. For example, let's look at the LALVOTERID = LALCA3169443. The characters in the fourth and fifth positions of this identifier are 'CA' (California). The second way to validate the state is by using the RESIDENCE_ADDRESSES_STATEvariable, which should have a value of 'CA' (California).

The date appended to each table name represents when the data was last updated. These dates will differ state by state because states update their voter files at different cadences.

The demographic files use 698 consistent variables. For more information about these variables, see 2025-01-10-VM2-File-Layout.xlsx.

The voter history files have different variables depending on the state. The ***2025-04-07-L2-Voter-Dictionaries.tar.gz file contains .csv data dictionaries for each state's demographic and voter files. While the demographic file data dictionaries should mirror the 2025-01-10-VM2-File-Layout.xlsx*** file, the voter file data dictionaries will be unique to each state.

***2025-01-10-National-File-Notes.pdf ***contains L2 Voter and Demographic Dataset ("National File") release notes from 2018 to 2025.

***2025-04-07-L2-Voter-Fill-Rate.tar.gz ***contains .tab files tracking the percent of non-null values for any given field.

Bulk Data Access

Data access is required to view this section.

DataMapping Tool

Data access is required to view this section.

Since 1964, voter turnout rates in U.S. presidential elections have generally fluctuated across all age groups, falling to a national low in 1996, before rising again in the past two decades. Since 1988, there has been a direct correlation with voter participation and age, as people become more likely to vote as they get older. Participation among eligible voters under the age of 25 is the lowest of all age groups, and in the 1996 and 2000 elections, fewer than one third of eligible voters under the age of 25 participated, compared with more than two thirds of voters over 65 years.

In U.S. presidential elections since 1964, voters in the 18 to 24 age bracket have traditionally had the lowest turnout rates among all ethnicities. From 1964 until 1996, white voters in this age bracket had the highest turnout rates of the four major ethnic groups in the U.S., particularly those of non-Hispanic origin. However participation was highest among young Black voters in 2008 and 2012, during the elections where Barack Obama, the U.S.' first African-American major party candidate, was nominated. Young Asian American and Hispanic voters generally have the lowest turnout rates, and were frequently below half of the overall 18 to 24 turnout before the 2000s.

This graph shows the percentage of votes of the 2016 presidential elections in the United States on November 9, 2016, by race. According to the exit polls, about 37 percent of white voters voted for Hillary Clinton.

This web map displays data from the voter registration database as the percent of registered voters by census tract in King County, Washington. The data for this web map is compiled from King County Elections voter registration data for the years 2013-2019. The total number of registered voters is based on the geo-location of the voter's registered address at the time of the general election for each year. The eligible voting population, age 18 and over, is based on the estimated population increase from the US Census Bureau and the Washington Office of Financial Management and was calculated as a projected 6 percent population increase for the years 2010-2013, 7 percent population increase for the years 2010-2014, 9 percent population increase for the years 2010-2015, 11 percent population increase for the years 2010-2016 & 2017, 14 percent population increase for the years 2010-2018 and 17 percent population increase for the years 2010-2019. The total population 18 and over in 2010 was 1,517,747 in King County, Washington. The percentage of registered voters represents the number of people who are registered to vote as compared to the eligible voting population, age 18 and over. The voter registration data by census tract was grouped into six percentage range estimates: 50% or below, 51-60%, 61-70%, 71-80%, 81-90% and 91% or above with an overall 84 percent registration rate. In the map the lighter colors represent a relatively low percentage range of voter registration and the darker colors represent a relatively high percentage range of voter registration. PDF maps of these data can be viewed at King County Elections downloadable voter registration maps. The 2019 General Election Voter Turnout layer is voter turnout data by historical precinct boundaries for the corresponding year. The data is grouped into six percentage ranges: 0-30%, 31-40%, 41-50% 51-60%, 61-70%, and 71-100%. The lighter colors represent lower turnout and the darker colors represent higher turnout. The King County Demographics Layer is census data for language, income, poverty, race and ethnicity at the census tract level and is based on the 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5 year Average provided by the United States Census Bureau. Since the data is based on a survey, they are considered to be estimates and should be used with that understanding. The demographic data sets were developed and are maintained by King County Staff to support the King County Equity and Social Justice program. Other data for this map is located in the King County GIS Spatial Data Catalog, where data is managed by the King County GIS Center, a multi-department enterprise GIS in King County, Washington. King County has nearly 1.3 million registered voters and is the largest jurisdiction in the United States to conduct all elections by mail. In the map you can view the percent of registered voters by census tract, compare registration within political districts, compare registration and demographic data, verify your voter registration or register to vote through a link to the VoteWA, Washington State Online Voter Registration web page.

Leading theories of race and participation posit that minority voters are mobilized by co-ethnic candidates. However, past studies are unable to disentangle candidate effects from factors associated with the places from which candidates emerge. I reevaluate the links between candidate race, district composition, and turnout by leveraging a nationwide database of over 185 million individual registration records, including estimates for the race of every voter. Combining these records with detailed information about 3,000 recent congressional primary and general election candidates, I find that minority turnout is not higher in districts with minority candidates, after accounting for the relative size of the ethnic group within a district. Instead, Black and Latino citizens are more likely to vote in both primary and general elections as their share of the population increases, regardless of candidate race.

PROBLEM AND OPPORTUNITY In the United States, voting is largely a private matter. A registered voter is given a randomized ballot form or machine to prevent linkage between their voting choices and their identity. This disconnect supports confidence in the election process, but it provides obstacles to an election's analysis. A common solution is to field exit polls, interviewing voters immediately after leaving their polling location. This method is rife with bias, however, and functionally limited in direct demographics data collected. For the 2020 general election, though, most states published their election results for each voting location. These publications were additionally supported by the geographical areas assigned to each location, the voting precincts. As a result, geographic processing can now be applied to project precinct election results onto Census block groups. While precinct have few demographic traits directly, their geographies have characteristics that make them projectable onto U.S. Census geographies. Both state voting precincts and U.S. Census block groups: are exclusive, and do not overlap are adjacent, fully covering their corresponding state and potentially county have roughly the same size in area, population and voter presence Analytically, a projection of local demographics does not allow conclusions about voters themselves. However, the dataset does allow statements related to the geographies that yield voting behavior. One could say, for example, that an area dominated by a particular voting pattern would have mean traits of age, race, income or household structure. The dataset that results from this programming provides voting results allocated by Census block groups. The block group identifier can be joined to Census Decennial and American Community Survey demographic estimates. DATA SOURCES The state election results and geographies have been compiled by Voting and Election Science team on Harvard's dataverse. State voting precincts lie within state and county boundaries. The Census Bureau, on the other hand, publishes its estimates across a variety of geographic definitions including a hierarchy of states, counties, census tracts and block groups. Their definitions can be found here. The geometric shapefiles for each block group are available here. The lowest level of this geography changes often and can obsolesce before the next census survey (Decennial or American Community Survey programs). The second to lowest census level, block groups, have the benefit of both granularity and stability however. The 2020 Decennial survey details US demographics into 217,740 block groups with between a few hundred and a few thousand people. Dataset Structure The dataset's columns include: Column Definition BLOCKGROUP_GEOID 12 digit primary key. Census GEOID of the block group row. This code concatenates: 2 digit state 3 digit county within state 6 digit Census Tract identifier 1 digit Census Block Group identifier within tract STATE State abbreviation, redundent with 2 digit state FIPS code above REP Votes for Republican party candidate for president DEM Votes for Democratic party candidate for president LIB Votes for Libertarian party candidate for president OTH Votes for presidential candidates other than Republican, Democratic or Libertarian AREA square kilometers of area associated with this block group GAP total area of the block group, net of area attributed to voting precincts PRECINCTS Number of voting precincts that intersect this block group ASSUMPTIONS, NOTES AND CONCERNS: Votes are attributed based upon the proportion of the precinct's area that intersects the corresponding block group. Alternative methods are left to the analyst's initiative. 50 states and the District of Columbia are in scope as those U.S. possessions voting in the general election for the U.S. Presidency. Three states did not report their results at the precinct level: South Dakota, Kentucky and West Virginia. A dummy block group is added for each of these states to maintain national totals. These states represent 2.1% of all votes cast. Counties are commonly coded using FIPS codes. However, each election result file may have the county field named differently. Also, three states do not share county definitions - Delaware, Massachusetts, Alaska and the District of Columbia. Block groups may be used to capture geographies that do not have population like bodies of water. As a result, block groups without intersection voting precincts are not uncommon. In the U.S., elections are administered at a state level with the Federal Elections Commission compiling state totals against the Electoral College weights. The states have liberty, though, to define and change their own voting precincts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_precinct. The Census Bureau practices "data suppression", filtering some block groups from demographic publication because they do not meet a population threshold. This practice...

In the 2020 election, around 42.8 percent of Asian voters exercised their right to vote. An additional 57.7 percent of Black voters voted. Voting rates have generally declined in presidential elections since 1996.

The table WV-Demographic-2025-01-28 is part of the dataset L2 Voter and Demographic Dataset, available at https://stanford.redivis.com/datasets/t6qv-ad1vt3wqf. It contains 2275672 rows across 698 variables.

The table OH-Voter-History-2025-03-30 is part of the dataset L2 Voter and Demographic Dataset, available at https://stanford.redivis.com/datasets/t6qv-ad1vt3wqf. It contains 7838364 rows across 428 variables.

Data Source: CA Secretary of State

This data biography shares the how, who, what, where, when, and why about this dataset. We, the epidemiology team at Napa County Health and Human Services Agency, Public Health Division, created it to help you understand where the data we analyze and share comes from. If you have any further questions, we can be reached at epidemiology@countyofnapa.org.

Data dashboard featuring this data: Demographics https://data.countyofnapa.org/stories/s/bu3n-fytj

How was the data collected? The California Secretary of State's Elections Division is responsible for maintaining a database of all registered voters as well as coordinating the counting of votes after elections. Voter participation is defined here as the percentage of eligible voters who actually voted.

Who was included and excluded from the data? The term "eligible voters" refers to the population of US citizens aged 18 years or older who currently reside in the voting jurisdiction and who are not in prison or on parole for a felony and who have not been declared mentally incompetent.

Where was the data collected?  Voter registration data and election results are collected throughout California. This subset of data includes Napa County and California.

How often is the data collected? Statewide General Elections are held the Tuesday after the first Monday in November on even years.

Where can I learn more about this data? https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/prior-elections/statewide-election-results

These data are derived from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey Voting and Registration Supplement (CPS).

The U.S. midterm elections are general elections that are held in four year intervals, approximately two years after each presidential election. Midterm elections are used to determine all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, approximately one third of all Senate seats, two thirds of state governors, and a variety of local and municipal positions. Midterm elections traditionally have a much lower turnout than presidential elections, with turnout among U.S. adults ranging between 38 and 56 percent, compared with a range between 54 and 70 percent in presidential elections. Since 1964, white voters have consistently had the highest turnout rate in midterm elections, particularly non-Hispanic whites. Black voters have been voting at a similar rate to the national average in the past decade; although it is still just one percent below the national average. Since records became available, Asian and Hispanic voters have traditionally voted at a much lower rate than black or white voters, and have consistently had turnout rates at approximately half of the national average. The 2018 midterm elections saw an unprecedented increase in voter turnout, with the national average increasing by over ten percent; the high turnout in this election has been characterized as a reaction to "Trump's America", and saw significant gains for the Democratic Party, particularly for candidates who were female, non-white or members of the LGBT community.

Prior research has found that descriptive representation by race, ethnicity, or gender increases political action, but it has paid less attention to how the intersection of these identities influences participation. We extend this literature by assessing the effects on voter turnout of collective descriptive representation in U.S. state legislatures on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, and their intersections. We argue that members of historically excluded groups respond to the overall composition of their state’s legislature. We test this proposition in seven elections (2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012). Our results are consistent with the minority empowerment literature, as overall collective representation does substantially increase turnout among previously excluded groups. However, the impact varies intersectionally. For white women, gender trumps race, as higher collective gender representation, regardless of race or ethnicity, increases voter turnout. For African Americans, race trumps gender, as both black men and women respond most consistently to higher levels of collective racial representation. For Latinos, we find less consistent results, but note a collective ethnic turnout effect for 2002 and 2006. We conclude that collective representation, especially at the intersection of identities, is an important factor influencing levels of turnout among previously excluded groups.

Replication material for "The Effect of the Voting Rights Act on Enfranchisement: Evidence from North Carolina"

The table SD-Demographic-2025-03-18 is part of the dataset L2 Voter and Demographic Dataset, available at https://stanford.redivis.com/datasets/t6qv-ad1vt3wqf. It contains 611195 rows across 698 variables.

The table AL-Demographic-2025-03-12 is part of the dataset L2 Voter and Demographic Dataset, available at https://stanford.redivis.com/datasets/t6qv-ad1vt3wqf. It contains 3612139 rows across 698 variables.

Recent work challenges traditional understandings of the link between race and voter turnout, suggesting that there is limited evidence of increased minority voting due to co-ethnic representation and majority-minority districts. Here I examine 65.3 million registration records from 10 states to trace individual-level participation before and after the 2012 round of redistricting, testing whether a shift in congressional representation, candidacy, and/or district ethnic composition impacted an individual's decision to participate. Separating results for non-Hispanic White, Black, Latino, and Asian registrants, I find that individuals change their behavior in response to ethnoracial context, with African Americans more likely to vote when assigned to majority-Black districts with Black candidates or incumbents. White and Asian registrants also turn out in higher numbers when a co-ethnic candidate is on the ballot, but Latinos may be less likely to vote in the short term when assigned to majority-Latino districts.