National Election Studies: Valuable Data Machineries and their Challenges

National election studies have become important data machineries for social science research in general and for electoral research in particular. In this note I will focus on the aims, consequences and challenges of national election studies by considering recent methodological developments with regards to both the data collection efforts and the type of data that is collected. I will then consider some of the institutional constraints national elections studies face to date and its repercussions on funding opportunities. I will do so by highlighting the Swiss national election study (Selects) and the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES) – two election studies that collect comprehensive data on elections, provide a wide selection of data points that are freely available and can be used for single country as well as comparative research projects.