The AES was a founding member of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) group, a collaborative program of cross-national research among election studies conducted in over fifty states. Established in 1996, the CSES has conducted four waves of data collection, with a fifth planned for 2017-2022. Australia has been a part of all five waves.

The CSES is composed of three tightly linked parts:

• a common module of public opinion survey questions included in each participant country’s post-election study,
• district level data are reported for each respondent, including electoral returns, turnout, and the number of candidates, and
• system or ‘macro’ level data report aggregate electoral returns, electoral rules and formulas, and regime characteristics.

This design allows researchers to conduct cross-level, as well as cross-national analyses, addressing the effects of electoral institutions on citizens’ attitudes and behavior, the presence and nature of social and political cleavages, and the evaluation of democratic institutions across different political regimes.