Study title

The data set is derived from Statistic Norway's local election survey municipal and county council elections in 1999 and 2003, commissioned by Institute of Social Research. The purpose of the survey was to enlighten different sides of the local democracy; elections and election campaigns, political interest and participation. The survey deals with the following subjects: -Political interest -Voting in municipal, county council and national elections. -Assessment of the significance of elections -Assessment of the local democracy and local services -Municipal challenges -Municipal organisation -Information about politics -Voting for persons in municipal elections -Political participation The survey is conducted as telephone interview and self-completion forms. The variables from the telephone interview have names beginning with 'spm', whilst variables from the self-completion questionnaire have variable names starting with 'po'. To obtain knowledge about changes in the electorate, a part of the sample is derived from the gross sample of the Local Election Surveys in 1995 and 1999 respectively. These panels consists of people in the ages of 22 - 83 years. For the panel to have cross-sectional features, the real panel had to be supplied with persons from cohorts that recently had become eligible to vote during the four intermittent years. The supplementary sample is often characterized as a "false" panel. Variables that started with 'l' are derived from the Local Election Survey of 1999.