For any finite abelian group G, we study the moduli space of abelian Gcovers of elliptic curves, in particular identifying the irreducible components of the moduli space. We prove that, in the totally ramified case, the moduli space has trivial rational Picard group, and it is birational to the moduli space M1,n, where n is the number of branch points. In the particular case of moduli of bielliptic curves, we also prove that the boundary divisors are a basis of the rational Picard group of the admissible covers compactification of the moduli space. Our methods are entirely algebro-geometric. 1 2 NICOLA PAGANIfinite map is in fact an isomorphism), the latter is naturally a codimension-(g − 1) moduli subscheme of M g .We now summarize the main results of our work. In Theorem 1, we give a geometric description of the irreducible components of the moduli spaces of abelian G-covers of elliptic curves. From this description, we are able to deduce further results for those components that parametrize totally ramified covers. In fact, in Section 3.2, we prove that each component of the moduli space parametrizing totally ramified abelian G-covers is birational to M 1,n where n is the number of marked points (in general, a superset of the set of branch points). In Theorem 3, we exploit our description to prove the vanishing of the rational Picard group of such components of the moduli space, and to find the number of independent relations among the boundary divisors of the admissible covers compactification. In the last section we make our results more explicit in the case of the rational Picard group of the moduli spaces of admissible bielliptic curves, see Corollaries 6 and 7.The Picard number of the compact moduli of hyperelliptic curves H g is g [21]. In Corollary 6, we see that, when g > 2, it is 2g for the compact moduli B g of bielliptic curves (without ordering the branch). A simple analysis of the number of boundary divisors of the compact moduli of double covers of genus-h curves leads us to conjecture that the Picard number of the latter moduli space grows is (h + 1)g + g · o(1) for g → ∞.