Scholars, candidates, campaign strategists, and journalists all review the results of past elections. Some review the results in order to identify trends in political behavior. Others are looking for potential strengths and weaknesses for their next campaign. Still others are trying to find ways to help a candidate win an election. Currently, the results are delivered as line after line of numbers and the precincts have names that are meaningless to most. Regardless of the reason for reviewing results, this work is daunting for those who are doing it for the first time and time consuming no matter how many times you have done it.

The Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics and the Helmke Library are collecting precinct by precinct election results and storing the data in a searchable database that will be linked to a geographic information system (GIS). This will allow the users to see visual representations of the data and to tie the data to geographic landmarks. The users will be able to see pockets of support, areas where groups have shared interests, and trends of political behavior. Making this information easily available will lead to more strategic campaigns and potentially reducing the cost of running for office.

Click here to search the Election Results.