swiss_votes

swiss_votes is a comprehensive dataset of municipality-level voting outcomes for all Swiss popular votes from 1866 to 2023. This repository enables detailed analysis of voting behavior, trends, and regional variation across nearly 160 years of direct democracy.

Datasets

• final_1866_1999.parquet
  Municipality-level referendum results (1866–1999), mapped to the municipal boundaries as of 1999.

• final_1866_2023.parquet
  Municipality-level referendum results (1866–2023), mapped to the municipal boundaries as of 2023.

• all_combinations_1866_2023.parquet
  Complete set of all municipality–vote combinations from 1866 to 2023. Data until 1999 is mapped to the 1999 municipal structure; from 2000 onward, to the 2023 municipal structure.

Columns

• canton_id: Official numeric ID of the canton
• canton_short: Abbreviation of the canton
• mun_id: Official numeric ID of the municipality
• mun_name: Name of the municipality
• vote_id: Official numeric ID of the popular vote
• year: Year the popular vote took place
• date: Date of the popular vote
• yes: Number of yes votes
• no: Number of no votes

Usage

The data files are in Parquet format and can be read using Python (e.g., with pandas or pyarrow), R, or other compatible tools. Example (Python):

import polars as pl

df = pl.read_parquet("final_1866_2023.parquet")
print(df.head())