Ballotpedia partnerships: Facebook
Facebook’s platform has connected millions of Americans with the news and community they seek; in an effort to provide a resource to readers, we are providing Facebook with a way for our encyclopedic content to be accessed in a streamlined fashion. This aligns with Ballotpedia’s overall mission to seek out those ways we can best lend our insight. Our neutral, sourced, and accurate content allows Facebook users to review the information and come to their own conclusions and decisions. Meanwhile, a new audience is opened to Ballotpedia’s fact-seeking community.
Ballotpedia is equipping Facebook with the same data Ballotpedia readers have access to, expanding the impact of our encyclopedia. We are not providing Facebook with any information about our readers.
FAQs
What information are you giving to Facebook?
Ballotpedia is providing Facebook with our candidate lists in federal, state, and some local elections. This dataset includes candidate statuses, such as whether or not a candidate has withdrawn from an election, as well as the candidate’s incumbency status and political party affiliation. Ballotpedia also shares our list of candidate Facebook pages.
Are you giving Facebook information about me?
No. We are not providing Facebook with information about our readers. We take your privacy seriously. You can view our privacy policy here.
How does Facebook’s sample ballot tool differ from Ballotpedia’s sample ballot tool?
Our sample ballots use different interfaces and have different requirements. The Ballotpedia sample ballot does not require a user account and displays all of the elections on your ballot in one list. The Facebook sample ballot requires a Facebook account, displays elections on an office-by-office basis, and may include additional local election lists in municipalities outside of Ballotpedia’s current coverage scope. Facebook received these additional local lists from other organizations. Ballotpedia’s sample ballot tool includes all state and some local ballot measures.
Something is wrong on Facebook’s sample ballot. How should I let you know?
The Facebook sample ballot tool has an error-reporting feature. Since Facebook’s sample ballot also includes datasets from other organizations, please use the Facebook interface to report errors you find on the Facebook sample ballot. If that error originated in the Ballotpedia dataset, Facebook will contact us regarding the error and it will be corrected on both the Ballotpedia and Facebook sample ballots. If you find an error on the Ballotpedia sample ballot, please complete our error reporting form to let us know.
How can I support the work Ballotpedia is doing?
Ballotpedia maintains an encyclopedia of over 390,000 articles with an annual budget of less than $5 million. Please consider making a donation. Your support will allow Ballotpedia to continue to maintain and write new articles covering important elections.
Q&A with CEO Leslie Graves
In September 2018, Ballotpedia’s CEO and founder, Leslie Graves, answered some questions to inform readers about the state of Ballotpedia and its partnerships.
Footnotes
