Revision [3905]
This is an old revision of PCTProcessesOverview made by KristenVicedomini on 2010-05-04 12:02:15.
Overview of Candidate Coverage
We are one of the few election information sources that treats all candidates equally, covering all candidates on the ballot regardless of popularity, how well they're funded, who parties support, or who's supported by special interests. The idea here is to move the locus of control in elections to the voters themselves. It is Project Vote Smart's goal to provide as much relevant, unbiased information as possible for each candidate, leaving it entirely up to the voters to make judgments on the candidates.
While it would be nice to have comprehensive coverage for all candidates, our level of staffing forces us to prioritize certain offices over others. Federal offices will typically get the most coverage, as they are of national interest and represent large geographic areas and/or large populations. Next in line are statewide offices, followed by the state legislatures. Unfortunately we just do not have the capacity to cover local elections (see the quality control section for how to find information about local elections). We do try to provide coverage for candidates before their primaries, but this more than doubles our pool of candidates, making it difficult to provide comprehensive coverage for everybody. As of 2010, these our plans for coverage (subject to change):
- U.S. Congress:
- pre-primary: extended contact information, biographical information (if time), position papers (if time), candidate evaluations (if available and if time), campaign finance information (if available from CRP)
- post-primary: extended contact information, biographical information, position papers, speeches from campaign website, endorsements, photos, candidate evaluations (if available), campaign finance information (if available from CRP)
- Governor:
- Lieutenant Governor and Statewide Executive Branch Offices: all candidates on the ballot
- State Judicials: all candidates on the ballot
- State Legislature: all candidates on the ballot
-state leg premiere coverage
PCT Department
Quality Control (questions can be directed to Aaron as well):
We get our candidate lists from the Secretary of State's office, and only include those candidates that have met the qualifications to be on the ballot. We list their party affiliation as it will appear on the ballot. If we are missing a whole state's candidates from our site, it is either because the Secretary of State's office hasn't released a list yet or has released it recently and we haven't gotten to it yet. Understand that we are attempting to take care of tens of thousands of candidates so will never be 100% up-to-date. That doesn't mean we can't tell citizens any information about their candidates though. First of all, they can research their incumbents on our site, who are likely to be up for election that year. You might need to look up what offices are up for election that year- this should be easy to find. To see who else might be up for election, you can direct them to the candidate list (if available) on the state elections' office website. Other sources can include: Politics1.com, thegreenpapers.com, google searches for the office and district in question, or their local newspaper (we have a directory of state media sources on our site that might help). If someone is looking for information on local candidates and local ballot measures, try directing them to their local election office (a directory of which is also on our site).
If someone claims we are missing a certain candidate from our site, it can be due to one of several things. We will need to investigate the situation further, but do not assume that we have it wrong.:
- the person is a write-in candidate only
- the person's filing for candidacy has not yet been cleared by the secretary of state's office
- the secretary of state's office has not updated their candidate filing list recently (if this is so, we would accept a signed statement from the sec state's office that indicates that person will be on a ballot- but this is usually furnished by the candidate)
- we haven't gotten to updating that state's candidate list. We do not generally add individual candidates- we will add a whole state's update at a time to be fair to all candidates. We may or may not know that an updated list is available, so if you are pointed to a discrepancy between our list and that of the sec state, pass this information on to Aaron.
Be aware that there are different qualifications for candidates getting on the ballot, depending on the state.
Judicial elections
gubernatorial
election results
runoffs
imports vs. manual
Contact Info and Bios (questions can be directed to Matthew as well):
Our campaign contact information is derived from several sources:
- the contact information that the candidate files with (sometimes this will be for their home)
- contact information available on their website, if they have a website
- submitted by the candidates themselves
When we first add candidates to our website, people that haven't been up for election before will likely just have their name, basic contact info from the candidate list, and how they will appear on the ballot. The next phase of updates is getting extended contact information from the candidates' websites. Incumbents will have contact information from their office's website as well.
Biographical information is compiled from the following sources:
-their
Biographical information:
PCT design, administration
involvement of advisors
periscopic/abridged pct
vsdm
hotline
media- media partnerships
candidates we don't cover- local, judicial, cities, states
Research Department coverage
Speeches and Position Papers
Endorsements:
candidate evaluations
Campaign Finance
Other election-related coverage
what we have does not represent the ballot they will receive- other offices up for election, other ballot measures
voter registration
election resources
local election offices
ballot measures
