The sample consisted of respondents who provided an interview in 2000 (the "Panel"), and a new RDD cross-section (the "Fresh Cross"). A total of 1511 pre-election interviews were conducted (1187 Panel, 324 Fresh Cross), 1346 of which went on to also provide a post-election interview (1070 Panel, 276 Fresh Cross). All interviews were conducted entirely over the telephone.

Should allow scholars to assess what sense Americans made of the terrorist attacks of 2001 and the election contest of 2000, and charting of the causes and consequences of changes in a wide variety of outcomes - social trust, civic engagement, political participation, and public opinion. Also included is a module on economic inequality, as well as core questions from the ANES time series.

STUDY CONTENT HIGHLIGHTS:
In addition to content on electoral participation, voting behavior, and public opinion, the 2002 ANES contains questions in other areas such as social trust and civic engagement. Special-interest and topical content includes questions on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the war on terrorism, economic inequality, the 2000 Presidential election, recent corporate scandals, the 2001 tax cut, and proposed elimination of the estate tax.

STUDY DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS:
The 2002 ANES is the first midterm time-series study to include a pre-election interview in addition to the standard post-election interview, and is the first ANES time series study to be conducted entirely by telephone. Interviews using the 36 minute pre-election instrument were conducted September 18 through November 4. No interviewing occurred on election day, November 5. The 32 minute post-election interview was administered November 6 through December 6. Half-samples and quarter-samples were utilized to reduce overall interview length, with random assignment of alternate question and word orders in many sections. A special experiment addressed the issue of over-report of turnout, with random assignment of either the experimental format of the turnout question that was introduced in the 2000 ANES, or the standard format of the turnout question. Data collection was conducted by the Indiana University Center for Survey Research (www.indiana.edu/~csr) using CATI instrumentation.

The sample consisted of 1,807 respondents who had previously provided an interview in the 2000 ANES (the panel respondents), together with fresh RDD cross-section cases, including 921 eligible persons, for an eligible total of 2,733. Of these,1,511 completed pre-election interviews (1,187 panel, 324 fresh cross-section) and 1,346 were re-interviewed in the post-election study (1,070 panel, 276 fresh cross-section).

WEIGHTS SUMMARY:
V020101 is a full-sample pre-election weight which compensates for differential sampling or inclusion probabilities for respondents and for differential nonresponse across geographic sample design categories. It also provides a post-stratification adjustment by age and education groups. V020102 is the corresponding post-election weight adjusted for attrition. These weights may also be used by analysts interested in analyzing only the data for the panel respondents re-interviewed in 2002.

AUXILARY FILES DESCRIPTION:
The 2002 Auxiliary File of contextual data is a file primarily intended to provide assistance to analysts gathering contextual information. Included are biographical variables for candidates and incumbents, as well as variables describing incumbents by political record and ranking.