Ballotpedia
Summary
A nonpartisan digital encyclopedia of American politics and elections — candidates, ballot measures, government officials, and electoral processes at federal, state, and local levels.
Body
Ballotpedia is the US non-partisan, nonprofit digital encyclopedia of American politics, covering federal, state, and local elections; ballot measures; elected officials; candidates; school boards; judicial elections; recall efforts; and the policy positions that anchor each race [source: ballotpedia]. The project was launched in 2007 by John Wonderlich and is staffed by a network of paid editors and volunteer contributors, with funding from a mix of philanthropic foundations, individual donors, and grants [source: ballotpedia]. Its self-description - the digital encyclopedia of American politics - reflects its coverage ambition: every state legislative seat, every county, every school district, every ballot measure, every candidate [source: ballotpedia].
Coverage: Ballotpedia’s core data on candidates, ballot measures, judicial elections, recall efforts, school-board races, and the policy positions on the ballot is updated continuously through election cycles; the Sample Ballot Lookup tool lets a voter enter their address and see what will be on their ballot, which is one of the most-used pages during election seasons [source: ballotpedia]. The encyclopedia format means every claim is footnoted to a primary source - state legislation, candidate filings, court filings, official notices - which makes Ballotpedia usable as a citation source for partisan and non-partisan campaigns alike [source: ballotpedia].
A campaigner reaches for it when looking up the exact text of a ballot measure, verifying a candidate’s record on a specific vote, sourcing a non-partisan policy-position summary, or finding the Sample Ballot Lookup URL to send to voters [source: ballotpedia]. The encyclopedia’s citations to primary sources make it usable as a one-stop reference that satisfies both partisan and non-partisan referrers. Treat as link-only; the encyclopedia is reuse-restricted by its licence. [source: ballotpedia]
Use it for
Campaigners can use Ballotpedia to research their opponents and understand the electoral landscape. The platform offers information on voting procedures, campaign finance, and policy issues, and historical data on past elections.
Related
Open Questions
- A direct fetch of the live site returned a JavaScript challenge rather than substantive content; the site’s full content is reachable only via a browser, which the local scraper does not exercise. Re-validate with a Playwright pass before relying on Ballotpedia citations in a case study.