Local Elections in Norway, 2003 - 2007, panel

The data set is derived from Statistic Norway's local election survey municipal and county council elections in 2003 and 2007, commissioned by Institute of Social Research. The purpose of the survey was to enlighten different sides of the local democracy; elections and election campaigns, political interest and participation.

The survey deals with the following subjects:
-Political interest
-Voting in municipal, county council and national elections.
-Assessment of the significance of elections
-Assessment of the local democracy and local services
-Municipal challenges
-Municipal organisation
-Information about politics
-Voting for persons in municipal elections
-Political participation

The survey is conducted as telephone interview and self-completion forms. The variables from the telephone interview have names beginning with 'spm', whilst variables from the self-completion questionnaire have variable names starting with 'po'.

To obtain knowledge about changes in the electorate, a part of the sample is derived from the gross sample of the Local Election Surveys in 1999 and 2003 respectively. These panels consists of people in the ages of 22 - 83 years. For the panel to have cross-sectional features, the real panel had to be supplied with persons from cohorts that recently had become eligible to vote during the four intermittent years. The supplementary sample is often characterized as a "false" panel. Variables that started with 'l' are derived from the Local Election Survey of 1999. Variables that are marked with '_03" under "name" are derived from the Local Election Survey of 2003.

Errors in the dataset: Some errors have been discovered in the variables for the questions 35 (A-K), question 36, questions 38 (A-G) and question 39 from the postal questionnaire. All these variables are missing data for the value "6". A value is also missing in the variables for the question battery Po33_A_03 - Po33_K_03, question Po29_03, question Po35_03, question battery Po39_A_03 - Po39_G_03 and question Po40_03. All these variables are missing the value "9".