Subject Guides

Voting, elections & the electoral process

Voting records of legislatures

Guide Contents

Roll Call Votes

Compiling a member voting record (from LOC THOMAS) provides useful information.

ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research) Data Archive
Contains a number of data sets of congressional roll call data from 1787 forward. Data is available for download for analysis. For more information see Data Services for Social Sciences.
Must set up an account using BU email address to download data on ICSPR site. Code books for data available on ICSPR site. ICSPR also offers training in quantitative methods to facilitate effective data use.
CQ Magazine
Use the 'Floor Votes" option to the left.
Produced by the largest news team on Capitol Hill. Search by keyword, topic, page number, committee, bill number, byline, and date. Archive includes detailed floor votes dating back to 1983. CQ Weekly is useful for accessing current news and analysis on Congress and major public policy issues. It is also useful for tracking votes and legislation in Congress, locating recent Congressional documents and related material in full text, and learning more about members of Congress and the legislative process. Coverage: 1983-present.
ProQuest Congressional
Use "Members & Committees" to search for votes by member; or look for specific acts of legislation. The Congressional Record provides the most comprehensive listing of roll call votes.
In addition to the Basic Subscription, BU Libraries has access to the full text of the Congressional Record and its predecessor publications from 1789-present, the Congressional Serial Set from 1789-2010, Serial Set maps from 1789-present, Executive Branch Documents, 1789-1932, and Congressional Research Service reports.

Project Vote Smart
Maintains key vote records and statements for federal officials.
Roll Call Votes (Congress.gov)
Roll call votes from 1989 forward. For the daily votes see the House Clerk or the US Senate
Politics in America (Bartle JK 1012 C63)
Provides voting records for individual members on key votes.
Congressional Roll Call (Bartle Ref JK 1 .C6635)
1969-1979. Provides votes for all members of Congress and analysis.
CQ Almanac (Bartle Ref JK 1 C66)
1945 - 2006. Provides roll call votes on select pieces of legislation. For updates see the CQ Weekly link above.