Ballotpedia:How we ensure factual content
Ballotpedia, the online encyclopedia of American politics, curates information about federal, state, and local politics in the United States. All of our content is compiled and published by professional staff writers and editors working across the country. But how does Ballotpedia ensure accuracy in that content?
Ballotpedia does not have reporters on the ground acting as a primary source. Instead, Ballotpedia typically curates content from existing sources. We gather, cross-check, organize, and summarize that information into an easy-to-access, neutral encyclopedia for our readers. In some cases, we receive direct, primary source content through email or voice communication.
Source-selection guidelines
We at Ballotpedia are aware that our article quality is dependent on the sources we use. If we use articles that are based on speculation rather than verifiable facts, we could lead our readers to draw false conclusions. If we use biased sources, we risk publishing facts that support one viewpoint to the exclusion of others.
As a result, Ballotpedia follows this set of source-selection guidelines to ensure that the information we use is accurate and neutral:
- Use primary sources when possible. For example, we get our congressional candidate filing information directly from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and we get our statewide election results from a state's board of elections or secretary of state website.
- Avoid blogs, social media posts, message boards, and crowdsourcing websites. These types of sources do not constitute reputable sources and may contain inaccurate information.
- Prioritize sources that are trusted across the political spectrum. Many news sources are favored by readers from one political party over the other. When possible, we avoid these sources and instead select sources that are viewed as nonpartisan by most people.
- Balance sources with competing narratives. For some stories, no source exists that is trusted by readers of all political ideologies. In those cases, we cite and cross-reference sources from multiple competing ideologies, listing facts that are common in all sources.
Fact-checking policy
Once articles have been written following these source-selection guidelines, Ballotpedia's Quality Team employs a variety of techniques to ensure accuracy in our content:
- Data audits: Ballotpedia staff audit a sample of our data, verifying each fact with external sources. These data points include vote totals, campaign website links, political party affiliations, election dates, and more.
- Error audits: Ballotpedia's Quality Team regularly reviews content from each staff writer, examining everything from grammar and style to factual accuracy and neutrality.
- Reported errors: Ballotpedia's readers and staff are encouraged to report factual errors using our error reporting form whenever they are identified. Factual errors are corrected within 24 hours of being reported. Our editorial teams then analyze each error to see (1) what went wrong, (2) whether related errors may exist elsewhere, and (3) what we can do to prevent similar errors moving forward.
