The German Society for Electoral Studies (DGfW) is a self-organized body of German academic electoral researchers. The DGfW was founded on 12 June 2007 in Mainz and was formally recognized as a registered, non-profit, public service association on 20 July 2007.

In accordance with its German articles, the DGfW aims to support social scientific inquiry by providing research-based, supranationally and internationally relevant services to social science researchers in general and academic electoral researchers in particular.

To achieve this goal, the DGfW has set itself the following primary tasks:

• to establish, institutionalize and permanently maintain a national electoral study
• to continuously monitor elections and analyze electoral behavior, based on national electoral study data, using social science methodology
• to provide high-quality data for the public
• to secure and expand its cooperation with international electoral researchers
• to contribute to the establishment of an effective infrastructure for nationally and internationally comparative research
• to promote and support young scientists, and consolidate German academic electoral research