Profiles Data Standards: PVSWiki

Offices: incumbents and candidates for Federal and State offices including:

Presidential
Congressional
Gubernatorial
Federal Judicial (federal district judges)
State Legislative, Statewide (full list here: StatewideCoverage)
State Judicial

For Elections, we cover all of the above except for Federal Judicial. These groups combine for 10,700 offices nationwide and at least 20,000 candidates for office during election years (on average).

Content covered:
In Profiles, we take every biographical fact a politician provides. More elaborately, we want anything a politician can tell us about their background, what they have done, who their family is, where they are from, etc.

Content covered per politician:
For biographical research, you want to look for the following: Title (Mr./Ms./Mrs.), Names, Nicknames, Suffix (Jr./II/IV), Gender, Birth Date, Birth Place, Home City and State, Religion, Family, Professional Experience, Political Experience, Organizational Membership, any Additional Biographical information available.

For address research, you want to look for the following: their campaign and office mailing addresses, their official and campaign websites, their social media, their email addresses, their elections, their current and former offices (if applicable), their current committee memberships (if applicable), and their leadership positions (if applicable).

Data Sources

Primary Sources:
In the profiles program, we prioritize information from primary sources. A primary source can be defined as "the most direct source." We want our data to come from the politicians themselves. Ideally, politicians would fill out a form and submit their biographical information directly to us. This is unrealistic, however, so we choose to take data from official websites, as this is where politicians communicate with the public. In Profiles, these official websites include government, campaign, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube, etc. A list of examples is below:
Government Website Senator Chuck Grassley
Campaign Website: Joe Biden for President
Facebook: Governor Tony Evers
Twitter: Congresswoman Stephanie Bice
Instagram: California State Senator Toni Atkins
Youtube: Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen

Secondary Sources:
In the Profiles program, we can and do take information from reputable secondary sources when it is not available on primary sources. A secondary source can be defined as any source not published by the politician themselves (or by their staff). An example would be anything in the New York Times or profiles researched by other political information resources like Ballotpedia. More info is contained on this page regarding the scope and use of secondary sources in research.

Frequency of Updates

The frequency with which we update various data types within the Profiles program varies depending on the type of office and type of update. For Federal level officials and candidates, we generally update their information more frequently than we do for State level officials and candidates (excluding Governors). Below is a list of general guidelines for frequencies of updates.

Committees and Leadership:

1. Congressional Leadership: Once per year in addition to the update at the beginning of a legislative session
2. Congressional Committees: Once per year in addition to the update at the beginning of a legislative session
3. State Legislative Leadership: Once during an election year in addition to the update at the beginning of a legislative session
4. State Legislative Committees: Once during an election year in addition to the update at the beginning of a legislative session

Please see the current roster checks in Google Docs or the Desktop Drive for tracking sheets related to roster checks.

Full Profile Research - Current Officials

Full Profile Research - Candidates

Full profile research includes finding as much information as you can on a politician as well as completing the categorization and tagging of each piece of data in a politician's profile. Below is a list of office types (in order of priority) and the frequency by which we complete updates for that group of offices.

1. President: during Presidential Election cycles, we complete at least 2 rounds of full research before the primaries, and then 2 more rounds between primaries and the general election.
2. Cabinet: N/A
3. Congress: at least once before the primaries and at least once more between primaries and the general election.
4. Governors: at least once before the primaries and at least once more between primaries and the general election.
5. State Legislative: at least once before the general election.
6. Statewide: at least once before the general election.
7. Federal Judicial: N/A; nominated and confirmed
8. State Judicial: at least once before the general election.

In some circumstances, we may decide to do research even earlier, however, this is not standard practice. In addition, we would ideally do additional updates if time and resources allow.

Office Information

Office information includes the office they are holding, any leadership positions they have, and any committees they are assigned to. Below is a list of office types (in order of priority) and the frequency by which we complete updates for that group of offices.

President:
Office: once sworn in
Leadership: N/A
Committees: N/A

Cabinet:
Office: once nominated
Leadership: N/A
Committees: N/A

Congress:
Office: once sworn in
Leadership: beginning of a legislative session
Committees: beginning of a legislative session

Governors:
Office: once sworn in
Leadership: N/A
Committees: N/A

State Legislatures:
Office: once sworn in
Leadership: beginning of a legislative session
Committees: beginning of a legislative session

Statewide:
Office: once sworn in
Leadership: N/A
Committees: N/A

Federal Judicial:
Office: once nominated and confirmed
Leadership: once every non-election year
Committees: N/A

State Judicial:
Office: once sworn in
Leadership: once per election year
Committees: N/A

Contact Information

At times, we will have to prioritize contact information over regular research so that PCT Administration can send out the PCT in a timely manner. This is true for every politician that we test in the PCT and applies equally across office types.

In addition, we will need to get contact information for all new officials after elections take place. This is true across different office types.

PVSWiki : ProfilesDataStandards