Adopt

A wiki resource is nothing without resourceful "netizens" willing to collect information, write, and edit. So why not join us today?

Make your state your own by making sure that Ballotpedia has complete information on the law, history, and ballot efforts in your state. It's easy:

1. sign up
2. put up a short bio of yourself
3. go to the page you edit or write, start working
4. add the page to your Watchlist

If you have questions, email editor@ballotpedia.org, and become part of the brains behind this encyclopedia. This is a work in progress, so thought and attention now can really pay off for a supremely useful site.

One thing to remember is that this site is not intended to be partisan. Though we hope to include every ballot measure that appears before any voter in the United States, and perhaps many other issues of voting, too, we recognize that this effort will only work if we can maintain a degree of objectivity. Entries should not be written and edited to convince a voter of a measure. They should be written to explain what a measure, or law, or official, actually is. That's enough.

Our motto states our objective: "The encyclopedia of citizen-powered democracy."

You may or may not think that more citizen control is a good thing. But that is our focus, so we expect most participants to approve. Everyone involved will disagree with others on some issues. That's to be expected. One participant wants strict reporting requirements on every element of support for a measure or candidate; another will regard this as an abridgment of free speech rights. But these disagreements shouldn't matter for the purposes of this online resource. We can all agree that these issues are important for our republic, and we can all agree to disagree about many things, but not about the need to put objective information first, and rhetoric . . . elsewhere.

Thank you for thinking about joining our efforts!