This study is the twenty-sixth in a series of national election studies produced by the Center for Political Studies and the Survey Research Center. The 2000 American National Election Studies entailed both a pre-election interview and a post-election re-interview. Hundreds of substantive themes are covered including: interest in political campaigns, attentiveness to media coverage, political participation and knowledge of the religious background of Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates. In this data file, variables 892 through 920 include indicators on religiosity, congregational affiliation, and church attendance. Local church activities with regard to politics are also included in the questionnaire. Finally, several new concepts in the 2000 study included questions designed to evaluate social trust, social networks and political knowledge. The NES/CPS American National Election Studies 2000 was conducted by the Center for Political Studies of the Institute for Social Research, under the general direction of Principal Investigators Nancy Burns and Donald R. Kinder.

The NES/CPS American National Election Studies 2002 was conducted by the Center for Political Studies of the Institute for Social Research, under the general direction of Principal Investigators Nancy Burns and Donald R. Kinder. Dozens of substantive themes are covered including: interest in political campaigns, attentiveness to media coverage, and political participation. In this data file, variables 226 through 233 and variables 312 through 316 include indicators on religiosity, congregational affiliation, and church attendance. Respondents were also asked about financial contributions to their church (variable 685). For more information, go to: http://www.electionstudies.org/studypages/2002prepost/2002prepost.htm

From the ANES website (http://www.electionstudies.org/studypages/2004prepost/2004prepost.htm): The study, in part, maintains and extends the core of the NES time-series by collecting data on Americans’ basic political beliefs, allegiances, and behaviors. It contains special instrumentation on American’s views on foreign policy, the war on terrorism, and the Iraq War and its consequences. It extends the experiment on the measurement of voter turnout begun in 2002, and carries expanded instrumentation on inflation, immigration, gender politics, and gay and lesbian politics. It also includes the Comparative Studies of Electoral System’s Module 2, which focuses on representation and accountability. The data also contain several religion variables, including questions about prayer frequency, importance of religion, attendance at religious services, and belief in the Bible.

From the ANES website: "The ANES Project Staff has merged into a single data file cases and variables from each of the biennial American National Election Studies conducted since 1948. This file is called the ANES Cumulative Data File. Questions that have been asked in three or more Election Studies usually appear in the Cumulative Data File. The variables are coded in a comparable fashion across years. The version of the Cumulative Data File that is currently available pools data through the 2004 National Election Study to yield 47,438 cases. Note that the Cumulative Data File only includes data from the Time Series data collections (that is the Pre-/Post-Election Study in presidential election years and the Post-Election Study in midterm years). Data from other ANES studies, such as the 1984 Continuous Monitoring Study, the 1988 Super Tuesday Study, or the 1988-90-92 Senate Election Study, are not included in the Cumulative Data File."

Religion variables include religious affiliation, church attendance, subjective importance of religion, beliefs about the Bible, and attitudes toward school prayer.

For additional information on this file, see the American National Election Studies website: http://www.electionstudies.org/studypages/cdf/cdf.htm