GERDA: German Election Database

<h1>GERDA – German Election Database</h1>

<p><strong>The German Election Database</strong> provides a comprehensive dataset of local, state, and federal election results in Germany. The data is intended to facilitate research on electoral behavior, representation, and political responsiveness at multiple levels of government. All datasets include turnout and vote shares for major parties. We also provide geographically harmonized files that account for changes in municipal boundaries and mail-in voting districts.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.german-elections.com/">Visit the German Election Database website.</a></p>

<p><strong>Key Features:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Municipal Elections:</strong> Coverage from 1990 to 2020, including turnout and
vote shares for major national parties (SPD, CDU/CSU, FDP, Greens, Die Linke), as well as
AfD, Freie Wähler, and others.</li>
<li><strong>State Elections:</strong> Data on turnout and party vote shares at the municipal level
(2006–2019), including major parties and additional parties such as AfD (from 2012).</li>
<li><strong>Federal Elections:</strong> Municipal-level results since 1980, plus county-level results
back to 1953, covering turnout and vote shares for all parties, with special handling of
mail-in votes.</li>
<li><strong>Harmonization to 2021 Boundaries:</strong> Every dataset is also available in a version
that aligns geographic units (municipalities/counties) to their 2021 borders.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Authors</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://vincentheddesheimer.github.io/">Vincent Heddesheimer</a>
([e-mail])</li>
<li><a href="https://www.hannohilbig.com/">Hanno Hilbig</a> ([e-mail])</li>
<li><a href="https://politics.princeton.edu/people/florian-sichart">Florian Sichart</a>
([e-mail])</li>
<li><a href="https://www.abwiedemann.com/">Andreas Wiedemann</a> ([e-mail])</li>
</ul>

<h2>Citation</h2>
<p>Please cite the following paper when using this dataset:
<a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/q28ex">Heddesheimer, Vincent, Hanno Hilbig, Florian
Sichart, & Andreas Wiedemann. 2024. “German Election Database.”</a></p>

<pre><code>
@article{Heddesheimer2024GermanElections,
author = {Heddesheimer Vincent, and Hanno Hilbig, and Florian Sichart and Andreas Wiedemann},
title = {German Election Database},
year = {2024},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/q28ex},
doi = {10.31235/osf.io/q28ex}
}
</code></pre>