Even as many in the United States are focused on the threat of biological terrorism, some are turning their attention to last year's national crisis -- election difficulties and reform. Four reports, released this week by the General Accounting Office (GAO), give a wealth of information on how elections are currently conducted in the United States, what contributed toward votes going uncounted in...

Based on the International IDEA database of postwar elections, which covers 171 independent states, 1,129 parliamentary elections and 360 presidential elections, this site is a useful resource for anyone studying voting trends internationally or in specific countries or regions. The site includes an overview (Global Survey) of postwar trends and specific data for each nation covered. This data is...

The US Census Bureau's new site "provides information on reported voting and registration by various demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and was collected for the nation in November of congressional and presidential election years. Detailed information from recent surveys and historical trends in selected areas is listed as well as projections of the voting age population by age, race,...

The US Census Bureau, as part of its Current Population Survey, collects voting and registration data in congressional and presidential years. Recently, the Bureau has posted data from the 1996 elections online. Selected demographic and socioeconomic characteristics are presented in both text and Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. Among the highlights of the report: 54 percent of the voting-age...

Last week, the Kaiser Family Foundation and MTV published online the results of their election-year survey of 800 18-24 year olds. The survey found that substantially fewer young people were planning to vote in the upcoming elections than the national adult average (46% to 64%). The top three reasons cited for not planning to vote were "a lack of information on the candidates (60%); the belief...