The University of Pennsylvania Libraries has purchased a subscription to L2 Data, which provides voter files on over 200 million voters plus 2.3 billion voter history records. This is a continuously updated database of every registered voter in the United States. It includes basic socio-demographic indicators (some modeled), party affiliation, voting history, and more.
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Our subscription includes:
The Penn Libraries license is only for the L2 Voter files. We do not have licenses for any other L2 data products. The data is available to the Penn academic community, including faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. To access L2 Data, please complete this "Terms of Use" form. Once you receive your account username and password, sign into L2 Data from this website. |
Voter files are publicly available government records of adults registered to vote in the United States who cast ballots in past elections. However, the term “voter file” typically describes any database of eligible voters used by a campaign or political organization. At a minimum, a voter file includes the voter's name, contact information, demographic information, and political affiliation.
L2 data collects publicly available voter files from each state and gathers them into a standardized format to make it easier to navigate for analysis. They collect data from minor and major elections, parties, districts, credit bureaus, telecom companies, and government sources. Its voter files include nearly 95 million cell phones nationwide. Their visualization tools provide additional geographic, electoral, and demographic data.
Voter file data indicates who voted in a given election. However, it does not tell you which candidate they voted for.
L2 Data provides hundreds of voter variables for study in the following areas. To review all variables in the dataset, go to the L2 Voter Data Dictionary.
More detailed descriptions of L2 Voter Files dataset variables are provided on the L2 documentation page.
L2 provides a Training Center with several helpful videos to get you started. The L2 Data YouTube channel also provides videos for learning L2.
L2 has also produced a PDF document that works through the L2 VoterMapping website's visualization tools:
