Welcome to the website of the Project on Political Transformation and the Electoral Process in Post-Communist Europe.

This research project is based in the Department of Government at the University of Essex, UK, is part of the ESRC 'One Europe or Several?' research programme.

The principal aim of the project is to explain the role of electoral systems in the process of democratisation in post-communist Europe. The investigation will focus on twelve core countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine), but where available we have provided data for other post-communist states.

This website is part of the dissemination strategy of the project. It includes and on-line database of election results and electorally-relevant laws from throughout Eastern Europe. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems and the Association of Central and East European Election Officials contributed to the construction of the database.

The Election Law section of the database includes election laws (parliamentary and presidential election laws, country-wide regional election laws, universal electoral codes, and laws on basic guarantees) and other legislation relevant to elections (constitutional provisions, political party laws, campaign finance laws, media laws, and other relevant legislation).

Laws from 12 countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine) can be searched by country, election year and by twelve topic areas.

The Election Results section of the database includes results for parliamentary and presidential elections dating back to 1990 in each of the 12 countries, plus other information such as number of registered voters, turnout, votes cast, and total valid votes. Constituency level results of parliamentary elections from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine are also available.

Candidate data (downloadable SPSS and Excel files) and lists of relevant internet links supplement the database.