Ballotpedia is America’s most trusted source of unbiased information on politics, elections, and policy. We appreciate you taking the time to submit information for your Ballotpedia profile. The questionnaire can take between 30 and 90 minutes to complete, depending on the number of optional questions and length of responses. You may save your progress at any point and resume later.
- Please view our FAQ for any questions
- View our policy on edit and removal requests here
Disclaimer
Effective date: January 1, 2021
Thank you for your interest in completing Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection questionnaire! Please note the following conditions of this service.
Candidates can use the questionnaire to submit content to Ballotpedia. The questionnaire must be submitted by the actual candidate or a qualified campaign representative. We must verify that the person submitting the questionnaire is the actual candidate or qualified campaign representative. We verify candidate identities with the Truepic Vision mobile app, with which we have partnered. You can read more about that here.
When using the mobile app, candidates are requested to upload a picture of their photo ID. We accept driver’s licenses, passports, military IDs, student IDs, employee IDs, or tribal IDs. In order to ensure we can access the information if needed, the ID will remain stored on a secure server for six months after the November general election in a given cycle. After that time, the ID will be deleted from the server.
Candidates are not required to verify their survey, but Ballotpedia will not upload responses for which we do not receive sufficient identity verification. If a candidate who submitted a questionnaire for one election cycle submits a new survey for the next election, the candidate will be required to resubmit identification, to which these conditions apply.
Ballotpedia will use information submitted in the survey in other sections of the candidate profile. Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit candidate survey responses and retains discretion over which information to use for other sections of Ballotpedia pages and to store in Ballotpedia's internal database. Ballotpedia also reserves the right to license access to all or a portion of this database. Any edits to the survey made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked as such to the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below are some common questions we receive from candidates about the survey. Please review the questions below to see if they match your issue.
Before candidate responses are uploaded to Ballotpedia, we must first verify that they were submitted by the candidate or a qualified campaign representative. Responses will not be uploaded until we receive verification. Please
visit this page to learn how to verify your responses.
Once you have verified your responses, please allow up to one week for them to be uploaded. Responses are uploaded in the order that they are verified, not in the order they were submitted. Photos will take an extra day.
Once your responses are uploaded, they will be viewable in full under the section labeled "Campaign Themes". Your full 200-word answer to the question "Who are you?" will be included in that section. We use only select information for the "Biography" section of profiles, and your full 200-word answer will not appear there.
No, not every question is required. Required questions are noted with an asterisk and each section notes whether questions in that section are required. Some sections require the candidate to choose at least one question within the section to answer.
The questionnaire can take between 30 and 90 minutes to complete, depending on the number of optional questions and length of responses.
You can save and resume later if you need to by clicking the orange "Resume Later" button at the bottom of the form. You will be prompted to enter your email address so that we can email you a link to your saved responses.
Even if you do not plan to fundraise, federal candidates are allowed to register with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) prior to reaching the $5,000 threshold for contributions or expenditures. If you do not want to file with the FEC, you can put "N/A" in that field, but Ballotpedia will not make a profile for you until the filing deadline for your state passes and you make it onto the ballot.
You can find instructions on locating your state campaign finance ID
here. In the table below the written instructions, scroll to your state and follow the steps to find your ID. Please put either the ID number or the unique URL associated with your record in the corresponding field in our survey.
Not all states issue an ID for candidates. If you are running in one of these states, please put "N/A" in that field.
All candidates for office can complete our survey. We will make a profile for you and add your survey responses to it. However, please note that our full election results coverage is limited to the largest 100 cities, state capitols, and largest 200 school boards. If you are a local candidate outside of this scope, we will make a basic profile for you as noted but will not cover the results of your election.
Please reach out to
editor@ballotpedia.org. We may not have received your phone number or your number may have been entered incorrectly.
We are happy to make
small edits to your survey for corrections such as fixing typos or grammar. Please detail the requested typo corrections in an email to editor@ballotpedia.org. Requested edits are made at our discretion in accordance with
our policy and we may reject changes that do not adhere to the policy.
We welcome additional responses, but we ask that candidates complete the survey again, with the answers to already-submitted questions included exactly as they were submitted initially.
You cannot replace an existing survey, but you can re-take it and we'll add the new submission onto the page in addition to your original submission. We can also offer to add a timestamped custom note about the responses from the candidate above the original response.
Yes, the survey provides the option to download, print, or send a copy of your responses after they are submitted. However, we are not able to make any corrections to grammar or typos within your responses until they are verified and posted. We strongly encourage you to review your responses before submission to ensure they are written as you would want them to be read by voters.
No, Ballotpedia relies on the integrity of candidates to be honest and does not perform background checks or fact-checks on their responses. However, Ballotpedia does
verify that a response came from the candidate before publishing it.
If your question wasn't answered here, please email us at editor@ballotpedia.org.
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