Electoral institutions are often considered an important independent or dependent variable in many areas of political science. However, problems with data availability have often artificially constrained much of our empirical research to particular geographical regions or time periods. Although there have been several recent attempts to remedy this situation, there is still no single database addressing electoral institutions across the world in an entirely consistent and comparative manner. The database provided by the project seeks to build on this recent work by describing some of the more important electoral institutions used in all legislative and presidential elections during democratic periods in 199 countries between 1946 (or independence) and 2000.