Supervising Issue Positions Research
Supervising issue positions research is incredibly important, as any errors have important front end implications. Also, at least as of 2018, fixing any errors requires a mantis ticket, which is a drain on resources.
Building Research Sheets
- The current way issue position research is completed is through accumulating data on spreadsheets and importing them to the website via mantis ticket.
- These sheets or organized by state and election stage (example sheet attached below)
- To create IP sheets for Primary elections, use the "Making_IP_Import_Sheets" query (attached below)
- To create IP sheets for General elections, the Primary sheet minus the candidates pulled form the "IP_Sheet_Making_Primary_Losers" (attached below)
- Make sure the formatting follows the example exactly, as small differences can mess up the import process
- Sheets can be generated (meaning research can begin) as soon as Election Monitoring releases the official candidate list
- Prioritize research by npat group (PCT Groupings). The goal should be to have all IP research done and imported by the npat group release date (day after the PCT is due).
Checking/Tracking Work
- Issue Position determinations should ideally go through two rounds of checks before they are imported to the website.
- Use a Color code for research determinations: Green → Yes/No (and Pro-Choice/Pro-Life) determinations and Blue → Unknown determinations
- Check the evidence to make sure it is attributed to the right candidate and question, and check the determination to make sure it matches the evidence.
Preparing Sheets For Import
- Try to group multiple state import sheets together in the same mantis ticket. This makes it easier for IT.
- Example mantis ticket: http://mantis.votesmart.org/view.php?id=9097
- After IT imports the sheets, research should go through and check at least half of the candidates in every state imported. When checking, count the amount of questions displayed. If that number is lower than the total number of questions, it means something was off on the import sheet that resulted in the question not being imported.
- You can get a head start on research before election season starts by researching the incumbents ahead of time. Some incumbents won't run for office again, but most will (meaning 95% of research done ahead of time is valid). It is advised to do this project in October - December the year before a major election.
- Always start a new staff or intern on a sheet that has incumbent research completed. Incumbents can have an overwhelming amount of data available and it can take much longer to research them as opposed to challengers. Doing this gives them a template of good research to follow, while also making their first list shorter and simpler.
- Spot check their work after they’ve done at least one challenger and one incumbent. Go through their evidence, citations, and determinations and see if you can follow the logic they used to get to their determinations.
- Issue Positions research is like writing an outline to a persuasive essay. The determination is the thesis statement, and the evidence is your bulleted points you’d write out in your outline before fully fleshing it out. As an Issue Positions researcher, you are making arguments about where others stand on important issues, and so the work you’re doing is convincing voters–who could be the ones that tip critical races!--that the inferences you’re making are correct.
- You’re making a million small judgment calls with your determinations. It sounds like a lot, but the more you do it, the better you’ll get at it!
