ces: Canadian Election Study Data Package

This R package provides easy access to Canadian Election Study (CES) datasets for analysis in R.

Installation

You can install the released version of ces from CRAN with:

install.packages("ces")

And the development version from GitHub with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("laurenceomfoisy/ces")

Example

library(ces)

# Get the 2019 CES data (metadata is preserved by default)
ces_2019 <- get_ces("2019")

# If you need to disable metadata preservation (uncommon)
# ces_2019_minimal <- get_ces("2019", preserve_metadata = FALSE)

# View available datasets
list_ces_datasets()

# Create a codebook for the dataset
codebook <- create_codebook(ces_2019)

# Examine variable metadata
metadata <- examine_metadata(ces_2019, variable_pattern = "vote")

# Get subset of variables about voting behavior
voting_data <- get_ces_subset("2019", variables = c("vote_choice", "turnout"))

# Download the official codebook PDF
download_pdf_codebook("2019")

# Download a single dataset
download_ces_dataset("2019", path = "~/CES_data")

# Download all datasets at once
download_all_ces_datasets(path = "~/CES_data")

Features

• Easy access to CES datasets from various years (1965-2021)
• Consistent data format across years
• Simple filtering and subsetting functions
• Automatic generation of variable codebooks
• Complete preservation of variable metadata (labels, value labels)
• Metadata examination tools
• Export capabilities for sharing dataset documentation
• Official PDF codebook downloads for all datasets

Troubleshooting

For package developers: If you encounter a note about “unable to verify current time” during package check, use this environment setting:

# Disable time verification entirely
Sys.setenv("_R_CHECK_SYSTEM_CLOCK_" = "0")
devtools::check()

This is the CRAN-approved way to eliminate timestamp verification issues.

Acknowledgments and Disclaimers

Data Sources

This package accesses data from multiple sources including the Borealis Data repository and the Canadian Election Study website. We gratefully acknowledge both Borealis Data and the Canadian Election Study team for maintaining and providing access to these valuable datasets.

The package author is not affiliated with the Canadian Election Study or Borealis Data. Users of this package should properly cite the original Canadian Election Study data in their research publications.

Original cesR Package

We thank Paul A. Hodgetts and Rohan Alexander for their original cesR package that provided R access to Canadian Election Study data.

Package Development

This package was developed with assistance from Claude Sonnet 3.7 and 4.0 (Anthropic) and Google Jules, AI assistants that helped with structuring the package, writing documentation, and implementing the core functionality.

Contributing and Feature Requests

Feel free to contact the package author about adding new features or if you have additional CES datasets you would like to see included in the package.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.