The Venezuelan Presidential Election Archive (VENPRES-A)

Authoritarian regimes maintain power through strict control over information, making data access a major challenge for the public, policy makers and researchers. Official records are often manipulated, selectively published, or erased, forcing analysts to navigate gaps and inconsistencies. How can these barriers be addressed? What strategies enable the reconstruction of data in heavily censored environments? This paper introduces the Presidential Venezuelan Election Archive (PRESVEN-A), a novel dataset on presidential election results at the polling station level, designed to address these challenges by providing an unprecedented level of granularity in electoral analysis despite severe censorship. Given the impossibility of accessing official electoral data, we constructed the dataset using secondary sources, insights from high-level expert contacts, and reconstructed data, helping to compensate for the lack of direct access to official tallies. This empirical contribution enhances the study of subnational electoral dynamics in restricted environments. Using Venezuela (2006–2024) as a key case study, we explore the challenges of data collection under state-imposed information restrictions and examine the broader implications for research in authoritarian contexts.