Complete Reichstag Election Dispute Dataset, 1871-1914

Each constituency-year is coded 1 or 0 depending on whether or not the constituency became the subject of an official investigation for the Reichstag’s Election Investigation Committee. If the committee deemed that the election in a constituency in a particular year was possibly subject to some form of malpractice or fraud and thus needing investigation, the constituency receives a score of 1.

If the committee decided that elections in a district in a year did not need investigation, the constituency receives a score of 0. The data also records the gross number of petitioned cases during the entire 1871-1914 period (including multiple investigations of the same seat in a single year) and the net number of seats investigated, excluding the multiple investigations of a single disputed seat within a given year.