• Description of Recent Mexican Election Vote Returns repository
• Files in the repository and how to cite them
• Codebook
• Coding procedure for the incumbent's status
• Procedimiento para codificar el estatus del ocupante
• Sources
• Acknowledgements

Last revision: 2023-03-10

^_2023-05-26 v.hat and alpha regressions, summaring each unit's electoral history, migrated from https://github.com/emagar/mxDistritos. Despite using electoral maps to maintain unit geography longitudinally constant, these are statistics directly relevant to this repository's content. See this blog post for details. There are several additions: (1) Pre-2009 v.hat predictions generated using same general approach, but backwards. Year t's predicted vote in the period is a linear projection of the unit's vote observed in years t+15, t+12 … t+3. (2) Estimates and predictions for districts as units of obsevation added, including predicted votes for the suspicious 1988 election. (3) Script for split secciones finalized.

^_2023-03-10 Inspect election returns online in Google sheets here (Beta)

^_2023-02-22 Casilla latitude/longitude added for federal elections between 2006 and 2018 (excluding 2012, where source requires debugging).

^_2022-11-18 Casilla-level lista nominal added to 1991-2003 federal deputy files.

New script code/extract-state-yr-mu-returns.r exports municipal election returns. Focus in a single state-year allows votes received by each party across municipalities grouped in one column each — easier to describe.

• Author: Eric Magar
• Location https://github.com/emagar/elecRetrns
• Email: emagar at itam dot mx
• Citation for the data: see 'About' on the repository landing page

The repository contains voting data for recent Mexican elections for certain offices at different levels of aggregation. Data has been compiled from many sources. More recent years tend to be coded from official vote returns. Earlier elections tend to be from secondary sources (see Souces section). Data inludes district-level federal deputy vote returns since 1979 and district-level presidential vote returns since 2006; and municipality-level municipal president vote returns (except in the state of Nayarit, votes cast for municipal president also elect a municipal council in a fused ballot).

Important note: older incarnations of this repository contain LFS (Large File System) files. Make sure to install LFS in your machine before checking out older commits of the repository.

You are free to download and modify the data (see the LICENSE document for details) provided you give proper credit to this source. Unless otherwise noted next to the file descriptor, the cite is Eric Magar (2018) Recent Mexican election vote returns repository, https://github.com/emagar/elecReturns.

In general, file names identify the office elected (i.e., df, se, pr, dl, go, ay for diputados federales, senadores, presidente, diputados locales, gobernador, and ayuntamiento, respectively), followed by the unit of observation (i.e., ed, df, dl, mu, de, se, ca for estado, distrito federal, distrito local, municipio, demarcación, sección, and casilla respectively), and the years included. Other than in Nayarit since 2008 (and, pending a court case, Mexico City since 2018), ayuntamientos are elected in fused ballots for a presidente municipal and a fraction of the municipal council (regidores and síndicos). Nayarit elects these members of the municipal council in single-member plurality districts called demarcaciones.

• data/aymu1970-on.csv = updated to 2022, can be processed with code/ay.r in order to systematize coalitions (ie., aggregate votes when member parties' returns are reported separately and remove redundant columns).
• data/aymu-upto-1988.csv = earlier records are separate for smaller file sizes, can be processed with code/ay.r in order to systematize coalitions (ie., aggregate votes when member parties' returns are reported separately and remove redundant columns).
• data/aymu1989-on.coalAgg.csv = pre-processed version of the above (starting in 1989) so that coalition votes appear properly aggregated.
• data/aymu1989-on.coalSplit.csv = pre-processed version of the above (starting in 1989) so that coalition votes appear properly split among its members.
• data/aymu1989-on.incumbents.csv = names of municipal election winning candidates (presidente municipal only) since 1989. Includes reelection status since 2018.
• data/ayde2008-onNayRegid.csv = Nayarit's municipal demarcaciones vote returns since 2008.
• code/ay.r = script to manipulate ayuntamiento returns.
• code/ayClean.r = script used to clean ayuntamiento returns, should be unnecessary unless new data are added because output has been saved into csv file.
• code/extract-state-yr-mu-returns.r = script exports municipal coalition-aggregates election returns. Select one state and year to get csv file with votes received by each party across municipalities grouped in one column each.
• data/dfdf1979-on.csv
  • Citation for this dataset: Eric Magar, Alejandro Trelles, Micah Altman, and Michael P. McDonald (2017) Components of partisan bias originating from single-member districts in multi-party systems: An application to Mexico, Political Geography 57(1):1-12.
• data/dfdf1979-on.coalAgg.csv = pre-processed version of the above so that coalition votes appear properly aggregated.
  • Citation for this dataset: Eric Magar, Alejandro Trelles, Micah Altman, and Michael P. McDonald (2017) Components of partisan bias originating from single-member districts in multi-party systems: An application to Mexico, Political Geography 57(1):1-12.
• data/dfdf2012-onCandidates.csv = names of all federal deputy candidates in districts and party lists since 2012.
• data/seed2012-on.candidates.csv = names of all senatorial candidates in states and party lists since 2012.
• data/goed1961-on.csv = updated to 2018
  • Citation for this dataset: Eric Magar (2012) Gubernatorial Coattails in Mexican Congressional Elections, The Journal of Politics 74(2):383-399.
• data/prdf2006-on.csv
• data/pred1964-on.csv
  • Citation for this dataset: Eric Magar (2012) Gubernatorial Coattails in Mexican Congressional Elections, The Journal of Politics 74(2):383-399.
• datosBrutos/ = directory containing selected primary sources. Files for state elections were kept out from the repository due to sizes exceeding github's limit… e-mail me if you need any of these.

Most variables are included in every file, some appear in selected files only.

• edon = state number 1:32.
• edo = state abbreviation (may differ from the 'official' abbreviations so that sorting them alphabetically preserves the order set by edon).
• disn = /edon/*100 + district number.
• emm = municipal indentifying code (edo-electionCycle.inegi).
• mun = municipality.
• munn, inegi, ife = municipal identifier, reporting the number and the codes used by INEGI and IFE, respectively.
• yr, mo, dy = year, month, day of the election.
• cab = cabecera, district's administrative center.
• circ = PR district (circunscripcion electoral, 2nd tier).
• v01, v02, … = raw vote for candidate 1, 2, etc.
• l01, l02, … = label of candidate 1's, 2's, … party or coalition.
• c01, c02, … = candidate 1's, 2's, … name.
• s01, s02, … = suplente (substitute) for candidate 1, 2, etc.
• efec = effective votes, equal the total raw votes minus votes for write-in candidates and invalid ballots.
• nr = votes for write-in candidates (void in Mexican election law).
• nul = invalid ballots.
• tot = total raw votes.
• lisnom = eligible voters (lista nominal).
• latitude, longitude = coordinates indicating a precinct's (casilla) north–south and east–west position in a map. Available for federal deputy and presidential casilla-level returns in the 2006, 2009, 2015, and 2018 elections.
• nota = notes.
• fuente = source.
• ncand = number of candidates running.
• dcoal = dummy equal 1 if at least one candidate ran on a multi-party pre-electoral coalition, 0 otherwise.
• ncoal = number of candidates who ran on multi-party pre-electoral coalitions.
• coalpan, coalpri, coalprd = members of major-party coalitions ('no' indidates no coalition).
• imputacion, distpan, distpri, distprd = when some parties coelesced in such way that only their pooled vote was reported, an attempt is made to infer how many votes each coalition member contributed to team. Variable imputacion lists what earlier election was used for this purpose ('no' if none carried); dist variables report the share of the coalition total attributable to PAN, PRI, and PRD, respectively. See this for details.
• seyr, semo = year of the previous/concurrent senatorial election.
• sepan, sepri, seprd = votes won by major parties in previous/concurrent senatorial election.
• seefec = effective votes in previous/concurrent senatorial election.
• fake = indicates fake data for hegemonic era elections, made up of best guesses about what happened in the state's race for the purpose of computing vote lags. Will normally be dropped from analysis.
• win = winner's party or coalition.
• incumbent = winning candidate's name.
• race.after = incumbent's status in the subsequent race. See this for categories and coding procedure (aquí la versión en español del procedimiento codificador).
• dcarta = dummy equal 1 if member filed a letter of intent with the chamber's Junta to run for office again; 0 otherwise. Inapplicable before 2018. See this.

In file data/aymu1985-on.incumbents.csv, variable race.after equals one of the following categories:

1. 'Beaten' if the incumbent re-ran and lost;
2. 'Reelected' if the incumbent re-ran and won;
3. 'Renom-killed' if the incumbent re-ran and was killed in the campaign;
4. 'Hi-office' if the incumbent ran for higher office;
5. 'Out' if the incumbent withdrew or was not renominated;
6. 'Term-limited' if the incumbent was ineligible for reelection due to a term limit;
7. A year indicates that it is too early to know the incumbent's status (and the year of the next race).

In categories other than the first two above, a suffix may be present.

• Suffix '-p-lost' indicates that the party lost the subsequent race (or, in case of incumbents elected by a multi-party coalition, that none of them won or was part of the winning coalition).
• Suffix '-p-won' indicates that the party won the subsequent race (or, in case of incumbents elected by a multi-party coalition, that one of them won or at least one of them was in the winning coalition).

En el archivo data/aymu1985-on.incumbents.csv, la variable race.after indica el estatus del ocupante en la elección subsecuente. El estatus puede ser una de las categorías siguientes:

1. 'Beaten' si el ocupante volvió a contender y perdió;
2. 'Reelected' si el ocupante volvió a contender y ganó;
3. 'Renom-killed' si el ocupante volvió a contender y fue asesinado en la campaña;
4. 'Hi-office' si el ocupante contendió por otro cargo de elección (p.ej. gobernador o senador);
5. 'Out' si el ocupante se retiró o no fue repostulado por el partido;
6. 'Term-limited' si el ocupante estaba constitucionalmente impedido para aspirar a reelegirse;
7. Un año indica que aún es temprano para conocer el estatus (y el año de la próxima elección).

En las categorías 3 en adelante, un sufijo puede estar presente.

• El sufijo '-p-lost' indica que el partido perdió la elección subsecuente (o, para ocupantes electos por una coalición multi-partidista, que ninguno de esos partidos ganó o fue parte de la coalición ganadora).
• El sufijo '-p-won' indica que el partido ganó la elección subsecuente (o, para ocupantes electos por una coalición multi-partidista, que uno de esos partidos ganó o que por lo menos uno fue parte de la coalición ganadora).

Work in progress

• Fuente = iee/ife/ine indicates data obtained from the primary source, the state/federal election board's web site.
• Fuente = tesis Melissa
• Fuente = Magar 1994
• Fuente = Mexico Electoral Banamex
• Fuente = Toledo Patiño paper
• Fuente = UAM Iztapalapa for older state races
• Fuente = voz y voto

Eric Magar acknowledges financial support from the Asociación Mexicana de Cultura A.C. and CONACYT's Sistema Nacional de Investigadores. He is responsible for mistakes and shortcomings in the data.

Many students over the years have provided research assistance to retrieve and systematize the information reported here.

• Under construction
• Daniela Guzmán Lerma
• Eugenio Solís Flores
• Francisco Garfias
• José Angel Torrens Hernández
• Lucía Motolinia
• Mauricio Fernández Duque
• Sonia Kuri Kosegarten
• Vidal Mendoza Tinoco
• Odette
• Julio Solís Ríos