Italian Chamber of Deputies Preference Votes, 1948-1992

Italy's electoral data covers preference votes for Christian Democratic (DC) and Socialist Party (PSI) candidates across 11 legislatures from 1948 to 1992. The dataset captures a period of open-list proportional representation where voters could indicate preferences for multiple candidates, with only about 30 percent of voters using this option. It supports analysis of candidate selection, intra-party competition, and the mechanics of a specific electoral system before its major reform in 1994.

Use Cases

• Analyzing intra-party candidate popularity based on preference vote counts.
• Studying the impact of district magnitude (4-53 seats) on candidate success.
• Tracking the electoral performance of the DC and PSI parties over 44 years.
• Modeling voter behavior under open-list proportional representation rules.
• Comparing candidate strategies across Italy's 31 proportional representation districts.

Strengths

• Covers a long and consistent electoral period (44 years, 11 legislatures) under a single system.
• Provides detailed data on a specific electoral mechanism (preference votes) used by about 30% of voters.
• Includes data from two major political parties (DC and PSI) across 31 electoral districts.

Limitations

• Column names and exact row counts are not provided, limiting understanding of the data structure.
• The dataset is part of a larger study; the relationship to other component datasets is not fully detailed here.
• Metadata such as last update date and file format is missing.

Provenance

Source

Miriam A. Golden, University of California, Los Angeles

Collection Method

Likely compiled from official Italian electoral records.

Time Range

1948 to 1992

Geography

Republic of Italy (specifically the 31 proportional representation districts for the Chamber of Deputies)