This study is part of a time-series collection of national surveys fielded continuously since 1948, designed to present data on Americans' social backgrounds, enduring political predispositions, social and political values, perceptions and evaluations of groups and candidates, opinions on questions of public policy, and participation in political life. The 1996 National Election Study contains both a pre- and a post-election component. The pre-election survey includes interviews in which approximately 77 percent of the cases are empaneled respondents who were first interviewed in the ANES 1992 TIME SERIES STUDY (ICPSR 6067) or the ANES 1994 TIME SERIES STUDY (ICPSR 6507), or both. The other 23 percent of the pre-election cases are a freshly drawn cross-section sample. Of the 1,714 citizens interviewed during the pre-election stage, 1,534 (89.5 percent) also participated in the post-election survey: 1,197 of these respondents were panel cases and 337 were cross-section. The content of the 1996 Election Study reflects its dual function, both as a traditional presidential election year time-series data collection and as a panel study. Substantive themes presented in the 1996 questionnaires included interest in political campaigns, evaluations of the political parties, knowledge and evaluation of the presidential and House candidates, political participation (including turnout in the presidential primaries and in the November general election as well as other forms of electoral campaign activity), and vote choices for president, the United States House of Representatives, and the United States Senate. Additional items focus on perceptions of personal and national economic well-being, positions on social welfare issues like the role of government in the provision of jobs and a good standard of living, positions on social issues (including abortion, women's roles, and prayer in the schools), racial and ethnic stereotypes, opinions on affirmative action, attitudes toward immigrants, opinions about the nation's most important problems, political predispositions, social altruism, social networks, feeling thermometers for a wide range of political figures and political groups, affinity with various social groups. The 1996 study also includes new measures related to the dynamics of the congressional campaign, questions regarding the importance of issues, and the respondents' level of certainty regarding their expressed opinions, as well as new items about crime, the environment, gun control and income inequality. An eight-minute module of questions included in the post-election survey was developed by a consortium of electoral scholars from 52 polities to facilitate comparative analysis of political attitudes and voting behavior. Social capital items assess trust in people and government as well as membership and activity in a wide variety of social, political, religious, and civic organizations. A full complement of variables on group membership and participation is also available in the Group Membership File which can be merged with the Main Data File. Detailed demographic information is provided, as well as measures of religious affiliation and religiosity.

Weight variables are V960003, V960004, V960005, V960005A, and V960005B. V960003 is a full-sample weight that incorporates a household non-response adjustment factor, the within-household selection weight, and a post-stratification factor by age, sex, and region. The panel weight V960004 is constructed for longitudinal analysis. V960005, the "time series" weight, adjusts only for panel aging and attrition, and should be used when comparing the panel cases or the total sample to previous unweighted studies. V960005A and V960005B were constructed to correct for the under-representation of younger and less educated respondents and for the resulting contribution to voting overestimation. V960005A adjusts for household non-response, weights for within-household selection, and is post-stratified by age and education, with V960005B as a corresponding weight adjusted for attrition between pre-election and post-election studies. It is not intended that analysis be undertaken using the fresh cross component alone.

Response Rates: The 1996 sample included 1,795 panel respondents who had previously been interviewed in the ANES 1994, of which 759 had also been interviewed in the 1992 ANES. The 1996 sample also included new fresh cross-section cases totaling 661 eligible persons. The total eligible sample was 2,456 cases in all, with 1,714 persons completing pre-election interviews (1,316 panel, 398 fresh cross-section), and 1,534 of those also providing post-election interviews (1,197 panel, 337 fresh cross-section).

ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Created variable labels and/or value labels.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..

All United States citizens of voting age on or before November 5, 1996, residing in housing units other than on military reservations in the 48 coterminous states. Smallest Geographic Unit: congressional district

face-to-face interview, telephone interview For further information please see the ANES Data Center Web site.

Datasets: DS0: Study-Level Files DS1: Main Data File DS2: Auxiliary File: Group Membership File

American National Election Study (ANES) Series

National multistage area probability sample.