Converted to EAD3 : Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Version 3 : Release: 1.1.1 : Release Date: 2019-12-16. Validating against latest version of schema.
Contact information: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm89078897
Collection material in English
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
The Elections Research Center Records were given to the Library of Congress by the Center's director, Richard Scammon, in 1989. A supplement was given by Richard Scammon's estate in 1999.
The records of the Elections Research Center were arranged and described by Colleen Benoit and Karen Linn Femia with the assistance of Maria Farmer and Tammi Taylor in 2016.
Other records of the Elections Research Center can be found at the John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of the Elections Research Center is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).
The Elections Research Center Records are open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Elections Research Center Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The Elections Research Center was established in 1955 as a branch of the Governmental Affairs Institute, a nonprofit research and survey organization founded in 1950. After receiving a grant from the Stern Family Fund, then Chairman of the Board, Edward Litchfield, invited noted political scientist, Richard M. Scammon, to head the Institute’s newly formed Elections Office, later known as the Elections Research Center. The Elections Research Center operated under Scammon’s direction for thirty years, collecting elections data from each state at the municipal, state, and federal level and publishing several comprehensive analyses of American voting trends and statistics. Using the data collected, the Center published its biennial series,
The records of the Elections Research Center span the years 1918-1992, with the bulk of the material concentrated between 1932 and 1992. The records consist of newspaper clippings, ballots, election returns, reports, notes, statistical data, voting district maps, printed material, and correspondence. The collection is arranged, filed, and numbered as received from the donor and organized into a General File , State File and Oversize .
The General File contains newspaper clippings, ballots, notes, and correspondence covering a variety of topics, namely voting and election matters of broad national and international interest. The material includes newspaper clippings documenting national coverage of the 1980 general election, the 1990 Census and resulting congressional reapportionment, and printed material regarding the 99th through 101st Congresses, among other topics. Newspaper clippings and printed materials regarding elections in Poland, Germany, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union are also comprised in this series, as are subject files regarding politician George C. Wallace. The correspondence in this series largely pertains to expenditures and funding requests for a voter registration project conducted by the Center between 1973 and 1977.
More extensive in scope and chronology is the State File , which contains newspaper clippings from local news outlets, sample ballots, notes compiled by Scammon, voting district maps, statistical data, and printed materials covering election campaigns and outcomes for all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Within each state is documentation of the biennial primary and general elections, which for most states ranges between 1956 and 1992. Some states, though not all, include separate coverage of gubernatorial and municipal elections, dating primarily from the early 1950s until the mid-1980s. Election returns and voting statistics by district for major American cities, including New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago, among others, is also comprised within the State File . Of particular note are the sample ballots collected for several states, the majority of which date between 1932 and 1948 and illustrate the variety of mid-twentieth century American political parties and their logos. Significant ballot measures chronicled in this series include Oklahoma’s repeal of prohibition in 1959, and Virginia, North Carolina, and other states' attempts to maintain and later eliminate segregation in public schools. Also of note is a file pertaining to the creation of the District of Columbia's Board of Elections in 1955 and later, correspondence regarding the establishment of Home Rule in the District in 1973, for which Scammon served as a consultant.
With the exception of one file regarding the Stern Family Fund grant for a voter registration project in the General File , this collection does not document the Elections Research Center’s business operations or functions, nor does it chronical publication processes for the
This collection is arranged in three series:
Newspaper clippings, ballots, notes, correspondence, and printed material.
Arranged alphabetically by subject.
Newspaper clippings, ballots, notes, voting district maps, statistical data, and printed materials.
Arranged alphabetically by state.
Printed material.
Arranged and described according to the series, container, and folder from which the items were removed.