After every presidential and/or congressional election in the United States, there are always three leading sources for election returns. For the 2014 election, however, two of those three sources still haven’t been published. The only one that has been published is “Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 4, 2014.” The author is the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. The publication is free but it is often difficult to obtain a copy; anyone who wants one might ask his or her member of the U.S. House for help.
The Federal Election Commission always publishes an election returns book, called “Federal Elections (insert year here)”. But it isn’t out yet for 2014. Congressional Quarterly always publishes “America Votes” but the 2014 volume isn’t out yet. These latter two publications are more useful than the Clerk’s book, because the latter two publications include primary election returns. But the Clerk’s book doesn’t. The two late publications will probably be out by the end of 2015.
Surely the Clerk of the HoR and the FEC should be working together to publish an agreed data set of election result?
They could allocate different tasks between the two which would result in quicker publication, reduce duplication of effort in collecting the same data and save some $$$ to boot.
You’re right, it is odd that two different agencies of the federal government each put out their own book. The Clerk of the House has been doing his or her book since 1920, and I guess the Clerk’s office sees no reason to stop. The Clerk’s book is a very useful book. At the back it has charts that show the total vote for each party for US House in the entire nation. Also US Senate.