Making Elections Great Again: Finding the Right Data
Channel: Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian Webinars
Date: 08/11/2016

Every four years, presidential elections lead to a spike in interest in politics among students and the public alike. For librarians, this often translates into numerous requests for various kinds of electoral data, typically voting returns, but also data and statistics on turnout and registration, campaigns and candidates, electoral administration, campaign finance, and public opinion. And while data on U.S. elections are plentiful, the vast array of political jurisdictions, electoral laws and regulations, reporting sources, and coverage gaps can leave the public (and librarians!) feeling confused and bewildered. This webinar will present major sources, both free and paid, for data on U.S. elections for a variety of offices.

Jeremy Darrington is the Politics Librarian at Princeton University's Firestone Library. He received his MLIS from the University of Washington, and also had degrees from BYU and UC Berkeley. Jeremy is a past chair of the Law and Political Science Section (now Politics, Policy, and International Relations Section) of ACRL and past convener of ACRL’s Numeric and Geospatial Data Services in Academic Libraries Interest Group. He’s also the Political Science Editor for Resources for College Libraries. In addition to all areas of politics, his research interests include technology in libraries, government information, digital privacy, dabbling in coding and data science, and a wide range of social science topics.