Where can one download the official certified county-by-county vote totals for the 2024 presidential election?
Executive summary
Official, certified county-by-county presidential returns for 2024 are published and downloadable from the individual state election offices that certified their results; aggregated national downloads also exist from federal and academic projects but some aggregators are explicit that they are compilations rather than primary, certified sources [1] [2] [3]. Practical options include downloading per‑state certified files from state boards, the Federal Election Commission’s summary PDF, or ready-made county datasets assembled and documented by academic groups such as MIT Election Lab and Bucknell that cite state-certified sources [1] [2] [4] [5].
1. Where the legal “official” county totals live: state election offices
The legally certified county totals are published and archived by each state’s election authority because certification is a state process, so the definitive county‑level files are the ones posted by state boards of elections (example: Maryland publishes raw 2024 election data files on its elections site) and users should download from those pages for authoritative records [1].
2. A single federal snapshot: the FEC’s official presidential results PDF
For a consolidated federal document, the Federal Election Commission has produced an “OFFICIAL 2024 PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION RESULTS” PDF that tabulates ballots for presidential candidates and links to state certificates of electoral votes, providing a nationally collated, official summary though not always in county-by-county CSV form [2].
3. Academics and data projects that package certified county files
Researchers and university projects prepare downloadable county datasets tied to certified state sources: MIT Election Lab maintains data files containing county‑level presidential returns through 2024 intended for research use, and Bucknell’s digital commons hosts a 2024 county-level dataset explicitly sourced from finalized (certified) state election board results wherever possible [4] [5].
4. Aggregators, repositories and cautionary notes
Open repositories and aggregators such as a widely used GitHub compilation collect county results from news outlets and official pages and provide convenient FIPS-linked files, but these sources warn that their compilations are exhaustive yet “not authoritative,” so researchers should cross‑check against state-certified files for legal or audit purposes [3].
5. Practical workflow recommended for download and verification
The most reliable workflow is to first identify the relevant state board pages and download that state’s certified county files (many publish CSV/Excel or precinct files, as Maryland demonstrates), then use a national secondary source—FEC summary PDF or academic datasets from MIT or Bucknell—for cross‑state aggregation and consistency checks, avoiding sole reliance on media interactive maps or commercial precinct aggregators which are useful for visualization but are not primary certified records [1] [2] [4] [5] [6].
6. Transparency, alternate viewpoints and hidden agendas
Data projects and news organizations prioritize accessibility and visualization and may fill gaps with their own parsing of state pages or media feeds, which speeds research but introduces risk of transcription or timing errors; GitHub compilations and news maps explicitly note they are compilations drawn from outlets including The Guardian, Fox, Politico and others and therefore carry editorial or methodological choices that should be considered when treating them as “official” [3].
7. Quick list of starting URLs and sources to download now
Begin at each state’s official board of elections webpage for certified county files (example state pages host raw election data), consult the FEC’s official presidential results PDF for a national certified summary, and use academic packages like MIT Election Lab or Bucknell for ready-made county CSVs that document sourcing back to state certifications; when in doubt, prefer the state board posting as the legal record [1] [2] [4] [5].