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This is a Non-Federal dataset covered by different Terms of Use than Data.gov.

San Francisco Ballot Propositions Database - Historical Ballot Propositions 1907-present

Metadata Updated: March 29, 2025

A. SUMMARY

The San Francisco Public Library is thrilled to share our dataset from the San Francisco Ballot Propositions Database on DataSF. This dataset contains full text of San Francisco ballot propositions dating back to 1907 and links to digitized PDF versions of the pamphlets for each election.

Visit SFPL's San Francisco Ballot Propositions Database for a keyword searchable interface and links to Voter Information pamphlets.

B. HOW THE DATASET IS CREATED

San Francisco Public Library received a Library Services and Technology grant to finance the digital scanning and microfilming of the Library's print collection of voter information pamphlets and handbooks for San Francisco municipal elections. Although not complete, the collection dates back to 1907. Approximately 59,000 voter pamphlet pages, including 1,500 propositions, were digitized into PDF files. For some elections, separate pamphlets were created for each voting district or a combination of each voting district and political party, and there is no singular representative pamphlet which includes all of the candidates for that election. As a result, the hard copies of the various pamphlets were bound together to represent that particular election, and this resulted in extra-large digitized versions.

Because the PDF files of the voter pamphlets are images instead of text, they cannot be searched electronically. San Francisco Public Library staff developed the San Francisco Ballot Propositions Database to provide keyword access to San Francisco propositions, pass/fail outcomes and other information, and links to the full-text PDF Voter Information Pamphlet.

C. UPDATE PROCESS

This dataset is updated when the final election results from the San Francisco Department of Elections are available.

D. HOW TO USE THIS DATASET

This dataset contains the number and percentage of ballots cast, percentage required to pass, as well as pass/fail outcomes, the full text of each proposition, and a link to a PDF version of the Voter Information Pamphlet for that election, if available.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. Non-Federal: This dataset is covered by different Terms of Use than Data.gov. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date August 7, 2021
Metadata Updated Date March 29, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from SFO JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 7, 2021
Metadata Updated Date March 29, 2025
Publisher data.sfgov.org
Maintainer
Identifier https://data.sfgov.org/api/views/88s2-6ua9
Data First Published 2024-03-25
Data Last Modified 2024-03-25
Category City Management and Ethics
Public Access Level public
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://data.sfgov.org/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 6d375685-c0dc-445d-9578-b697c6b9e6d6
Harvest Source Id 8507fa43-f429-4095-b732-2177330ce485
Harvest Source Title SFO JSON
Homepage URL https://data.sfgov.org/d/88s2-6ua9
License http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/pddl/1.0/
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 11a99bf28193b4ccf50f48d67e579a1f3e3d94c891997972d02b828623a7ffdd
Source Schema Version 1.1

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