Psephos
Encyclopedia
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, a historian, former aide to Australian MP Michael Danby
Michael Danby
Michael David Danby is an Australian politician and has been an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives since October 1998, representing the Division of Melbourne Ports, Victoria...
and current aide to Senator David Feeney
David Feeney
David Ian Feeney is an Australian politician. He has been a Labor member of the Australian Senate since July 2008.Feeney was born in Adelaide. His father is a immigrant from Northern Ireland. Raised Catholic, he attended Mercedes College, Adelaide before moving to Melbourne, where he attended...
, Psephos includes detailed statistics for presidential and legislative elections from 174 countries, with at least some statistics for every country that has what Carr considers to be genuine national elections. For many countries there are also statistics for state and provincial elections.
"Psephos" is a Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
word meaning "pebble", a reference to the Ancient Greek method of voting by dropping pebbles into urns, and is the root of the word psephology
Psephology
Psephology is that branch of political science which deals with the study and scientific analysis of elections. Psephology uses historical precinct voting data, public opinion polls, campaign finance information and similar statistical data. The term was coined in the United Kingdom in 1952 by...
, the study of elections.
Carr began accumulating Australian election statistics in the mid-1980s, with the intention of publishing a complete print edition of Australian national elections statistics dating back to 1901. With the advent of the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
, Carr abandoned this idea and began to place election statistics at his personal website. In 2001 he founded Psephos, and began to include statistics from other countries. He has also included historical statistics, such as figures for all U.S. presidential elections and for British House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
elections since 1900.
Psephos is more noted, however, for locating less easily accessible statistics and placing them online. These include constituency-level figures for Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese legislative elections, which are not available in English anywhere else on the internet, and figures from countries as obscure as Andorra
Andorra
Andorra , officially the Principality of Andorra , also called the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra, , is a small landlocked country in southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France. It is the sixth smallest nation in Europe having an area of...
, Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea where the capital Malabo is situated.Annobón is the southernmost island of Equatorial Guinea and is situated just south of the equator. Bioko island is the northernmost point of Equatorial Guinea. Between the two islands and to the...
, São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe, officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, is a Portuguese-speaking island nation in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. It consists of two islands: São Tomé and Príncipe, located about apart and about , respectively, off...
and Tuvalu
Tuvalu
Tuvalu , formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. It comprises four reef islands and five true atolls...
. These figures are obtained from a variety of sources, including government election websites, media websites and political party websites. Increasingly, statistics are sent directly to Carr by psephologists, academics and political activists in the countries concerned.
The archive also includes Carr's original electoral maps at constituency level for a number or countries, including Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and maps at regional level for many other countries.
Matthew M. Singer, a specialist in election studies at Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
, wrote:
Psephos: Adam Carr's Electoral Archive is maintained by Australian journalist Adam Carr and contains election results for 163 countries as well as many sub-national entities. While not all the results are at the district level, in many cases the Psephos archive is the only online source for electoral data (especially for small countries). Another strength of the Psephos archive is that while many national-sources remove the links to previous election results as the new elections approach, the Psephos archive does not delete old-election results.
This archive, however, has two small drawbacks. First, small parties are often compiled into an "Other" category that for some studies, especially those interested in representation, political fragmentation, or the success of ethnic or gender parties, is a potential problem. Second, like the University of EssexUniversity of EssexThe University of Essex is a British campus university whose original and largest campus is near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965...
data, the results in the Psephos archive are presented with each candidate/party in a given district presented in a unique row. As a result, scholars must convert the data to a spreadsheet and then data manipulation, often a considerable amount, is required to make analysis of trends at the district level possible.
Despite these drawbacks, the Psephos archive is an invaluable source of electoral data cross-sectionally and over time. http://www.duke.edu/~mms16/Other_Main_Sources_of_Constituency_Level_Data.html
The site reflects Carr's views and does not claim to be politically neutral.