Record of American Democracy, All Key Data Files

The Record of American Democracy (ROAD) data provide election returns, socioeconomic summaries, and demographic details about the American public at unusually low levels of geographic aggregation. The NSF-supported ROAD project spans every state in the country from 1984 through 1990 (including some off-year elections). These data enable research on topics such as electoral behavior, the political characteristics of local community context, electoral geography, the role of minority groups in elections and legislative redistricting, split ticket voting and divided government, and elections under federalism. One set of files (Part 4, PRECINCT directory, consisting of 205 SPSS portable files) includes every election at and above state House, along with party registration and other variables, in each state for the roughly 170,000 precincts nationwide (about 60 times the number of counties). Another set of files (Part 5, MCDGRP directo ry, 52 SPSS portable files) has added to these roughly 30-40 political variables an additional 3,725 variables merged from the 1990 United States Census for 47,327 aggregate units called MCD Groups. The MCD Group is a construct for purposes of this data collection. It is based on a merging of the electoral precincts and Census Minor Civil Divisions (MCDs). An MCD is about the size of a city or town. An MCD Group is smaller than or equal to a county and (except in California) is greater than or equal to the size of an MCD. The MCD Group units completely tile the United States landmass. The program used to create the MCD group level is also included as part of this collection, as well as the input and output files. This collection also includes geographic boundary files so users can easily draw maps with these data.This particular set of files contains all key data files that comprise the study. Documentation and frequently asked questions are available online at the ROAD Website. A downloadable PDF codebook is also available in the files section of this study.《美国民主记录》（The Record of American Democracy, ROAD）数据集提供了美国民众在极低地理聚合粒度下的选举结果、社会经济汇总数据与人口统计细节。由美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation, NSF）资助的ROAD项目覆盖了1984年至1990年间美国的所有州（包含部分非大选年选举）。该数据集可支撑选举行为、地方社区语境的政治特征、选举地理学、少数群体在选举与立法重划选区中的作用、分裂选票投票与分立政府，以及联邦制下的选举等诸多议题的研究。其中一组文件（第4部分：选区（PRECINCT）目录，包含205个SPSS便携格式文件）涵盖了全美约17万个选区（约为县数量的60倍）中各州州众议院及以上层级的所有选举数据，同时包含政党登记信息与其他变量。另一组文件（第5部分：MCD组（MCDGRP）目录，包含52个SPSS便携格式文件）则在约30至40个政治变量的基础上，新增了从1990年美国人口普查中合并而来的3725个变量，覆盖47327个名为MCD组的聚合单元。MCD组为本数据集采集工作所设计的聚合单元，其基于选举选区与人口普查民政小分区（Minor Civil Divisions, MCDs）的合并构建而成。民政小分区的规模大致相当于一座城市或城镇。MCD组的规模不大于县，且（除加利福尼亚州外）不小于民政小分区。所有MCD组单元完整覆盖了美国陆地全域。本数据集还包含用于生成MCD组层级数据的程序，以及相关的输入与输出文件。同时提供地理边界文件，方便用户基于这些数据绘制地图。本次提供的这批文件包含了本研究的全部核心数据文件。相关文档与常见问题可在ROAD官方网站查询。本研究的文件板块中还提供了可下载的PDF版代码本。