Methodology · Presidential election results
Certified results
Official post-canvass vote totals — and why votes cast is not a turnout rate.
Certified results are the official totals a state publishes after its canvass: provisional and late-arriving ballots are counted, discrepancies resolved, and the outcome formally signed. They routinely differ a little from election-night tallies. This dataset is built from certified state returns (1976–2024) and county returns (2000–2024) compiled by the MIT Election Data & Science Lab.
Total votes cast is not turnout. A turnout rate divides votes by an eligible population — registered voters or the voting-age/voting-eligible population — and this dataset carries no registration or population denominators, so no turnout rate is computed here. A growing raw vote total may reflect population growth as much as engagement; compare shares and margins across years, not raw totals.
Also known as: official results, canvass, certification.
Data: MIT Election Data & Science Lab, Harvard Dataverse.
See certified results on the map
Explore presidential election results by state (1976–2024) and county (2000–2024) — margins, swings, and vote shares, election by election. Free while we're in beta.
Certified results — FAQ
What is certified results in election results data?+
Official post-canvass vote totals — and why votes cast is not a turnout rate. Certified results are the official totals a state publishes after its canvass: provisional and late-arriving ballots are counted, discrepancies resolved, and the outcome formally signed. They routinely differ a little from election-night tallies. This dataset is built from certified state returns (1976–2024) and county returns (2000–2024) compiled by the MIT Election Data & Science Lab.
Why does certified results matter?+
Total votes cast is not turnout. A turnout rate divides votes by an eligible population — registered voters or the voting-age/voting-eligible population — and this dataset carries no registration or population denominators, so no turnout rate is computed here. A growing raw vote total may reflect population growth as much as engagement; compare shares and margins across years, not raw totals.
Where does this election data come from?+
All figures come from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab (MEDSL), published on the Harvard Dataverse — state-level presidential returns 1976–2024 and county-level returns 2000–2024. pumsdata is an independent product that makes the data easy to map and compare, and is not affiliated with MEDSL or Harvard.