Principle 8: Election data is open when it is license-free - Section 2: Open Election Data Principles - Unleashing the Potential of Election Data - Open Election Data Initiative

"Licenses are used to delineate how information is to be re-used or shared. To make election data truly open and public, it must be 'maximally re-usable' and there should be no barriers for that re-use.[1] License-free data is data that is open for re-use and redistribution for any purpose ... The Open Data Policy Guidelines recommend that if the data are not explicitly in the worldwide public domain, then the data 'should be given an explicit public domain dedication.'[2] Tauberer notes that in the case of the United States, licenses typically build on copyright and other related restrictions ... Argentina is a great example of a country where election data has explicitly been put in the public domain. The government created a web portal where they publish government data as one of many ways to fulfill the commitments they made under the Open Government Partnership (OGP). In 2013, the provisional election results were made available on the public data portal. In addition, the data was given an explicitly open license (the Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL), which does not restrict the use or redistribution of the election data) and the licensing was widely publicized to encourage the public to access and use the data ..."