How elekt works

Every fact has a source

Each date, status and result on elekt records the page it came from, the line that page says, and when we recorded it. Select the link icon next to a fact to see it.

Where the facts come from

• Official sources - electoral commissions, parliaments and governments - are preferred and ranked first when sources disagree.
• Wikidata (CC0) supplies the skeleton of which elections exist and when.
• Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) can inform a record and is credited where it does. We cite it for facts; we do not copy its text.
• News reports count least, and a date that rests only on one never overrides an official one.

How it stays current

Research is done by software and every change goes through the same gate: it is compared with what is on record, given its sources, and applied only if the evidence is strong enough. Anything doubtful, such as a date that moves close to polling day on a news report alone, is held for a person to review. Elections about to happen are re-checked first.

Dates, honestly

A date is shown as precisely as it is known. "May 2027" means the month is set and the day is not. "Tentative" and "expected" mean the electoral authority has not confirmed a day. If an election is postponed or cancelled, it says so.

Results, as published

Results are what electoral authorities and reliable sources publish. They are marked provisional until certified. elekt does not call races, project winners or make forecasts. Indirect elections, where a parliament or electoral college chooses, are labelled and never shown as a popular vote.

What we do not use

We do not use IFES ElectionGuide, International IDEA, ParlGov, PolitPro, the Manifesto Project or NDI data: their terms do not allow reuse here.

Also on this site

• Country figures (population, GDP) are from the World Bank's World Development Indicators, CC BY 4.0, shown with the year they are from.
• The world map uses Natural Earth country shapes, which are in the public domain.
• All of the data is available as JSON at = " " = link_to "/elekt/api/v1", "/elekt/api/v1/countries" | , and the calendar as = " " = link_to "an .ics feed", elekt_site_calendar_ics_path | .

Use elekt from Claude or ChatGPT

Add elekt to an AI assistant that supports remote MCP connectors, such as Claude or ChatGPT, and ask it about elections: "when is the next election in Brazil", "which elections have provisional results", "how did the last Dutch election go". It answers from elekt's data and tells you where each fact came from.

1. In the assistant's connector settings, add a custom connector with this address:

   https://elekt.io/mcp

2. Sign in with Legal.id when it asks, and approve the connection. You need a Legal.id because the connection is tied to you, so you can see it and switch it off.

The connection is read-only. It can look up four things, all public: the countries elekt covers (elections_countries), one country's profile and elections (elections_country), a search across elections by country, date, kind or status (elections_search), and one election with its result table and sources (elections_get). It cannot change anything, and it reaches nothing of yours. elekt does not forecast or call races, and an assistant that does is not quoting elekt.

For developers

The same data, without an assistant:

• JSON API - public, read-only, no key, CORS-enabled. Start at /elekt/api/v1/countries, /elekt/api/v1/elections (filter by country, date, kind, status; paged) and /elekt/api/v1/elections/:slug for one election with the source, quote and licence behind every field. About 120 requests a minute per address.
• Calendar feed - /calendar.ics subscribes to upcoming elections in any calendar app. Add ?country=fra (or region, kind) to narrow it. A moved date updates the event in place.

elekt is made with Jane.