In one of my classes, I am doing a research project using the Voter Supplement. On the Voter tab, I am able select the 2020 sample option. However, when I click on the variables from the Voter Supplement (after selecting 2020 as an option on the prior page), the most recent data that populates is only from 2018, and not 2020. Do you know: 1) when the data from the 2020 Voter Supplement will be available on the site and 2) why the 2020 Voter Supplement can be selected if the data for 2020 is not yet published? Thank you!
The 2020 Voter Supplement hasn’t been released yet by the Census Bureau. We don’t know the exact date of release, but once released the IPUMS CPS team will work to integrate these data into IPUMS as soon as possible. In past years, the data were usually released between June and September of the following year.
The supplement should not be displayed on the website as it is not yet available; we will update the website accordingly. Thanks for pointing this out.
Thank you, I appreciate your help!
hi @Matthew_Bombyk i found the CPS voter supplement data from the Census’ FTP website (it wasn’t easy, and there was no documentation, but I figured it out eventually)… Can you touch on why they have released this data on the FTP website?
I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking about, but I can tell you that the Voter supplement data (including 2020) is available through IPUMS CPS. Navigate to cps.ipums.org, and select Get Data. Then choose Select Samples. Click on the Basic Monthly tab, then the Supplement Topics tab, then the Voter supplement tab (see screenshot). You can then add the voter supplement samples to your extract, for any years you are interested in, by checking the appropriate boxes and clicking “Submit sample selections.”
