Election Year Resources

It's a presidential election year, with lots of factoids and opinions tossed about.  Where do you find reliable information?  These databases are "on the ticket"!

CQ Political Reference Suite, a new addition to our collection this year, provides the full text of many standard sources about the U.S. government, elections, and politics.  Questions about the presidency?  Congress?  Supreme Court?  Elections?  You'll find the answers here.  Perhaps most useful are the bevy of statistics: find data on political affiliations, voter turnout, public opinion on issues such as the death penalty and terrorism, and much more.

CQ Researcher is a great place to find introductory information about a variety of political and social issues.

PAIS indexes hundreds of scholarly journals, books, government documents, and other sources, helping you locate authoritative sources on politics, economics, and many other topics in the social sciences.

ProQuest Congressional contains U.S. congressional documents and legislative histories.  It's a great way to find information about members of Congress -- including their election contributors, campaign finance reports, financial disclosures, and key votes on issues.   This database also is an essential source for congressional hearings, reports, laws, and regulations.

For even more databases and sources that will help with election year research, please visit our Government Information research guide for elections and our Library Databases webpage (select the Political Science category). 

And, as always, Reference librarians are available to help answer your questions and assist with using the databases. 

--Mary Molineux, Swem Library Research & Instruction Librarian

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