Ballotpedia:Our methodology on ballot measure campaign finance
This page describes Ballotpedia's approach to providing campaign finance information for ballot measures.
Guiding principles
Ballotpedia provides campaign finance data for committees registered in support of and in opposition to each statewide ballot measure, as well as a selection of notable local ballot measures. Ballotpedia also provides a list of the top donors to each set of committees on each side of a ballot measure campaign.
Ballotpedia uses the official state or local government campaign finance system to view reports of expenditures and contributions, and bases campaign finance data from those official sources.
When funds are transferred between committees registered on the same ballot measure, Ballotpedia subtracts the amount from the giving committee and counts the amount once with the receiving committee to prevent double-counting.
When calculating total campaign contributions for a given year, Ballotpedia aggregates totals by committee rather than by measure. Because some committees are active on multiple measures, summing contributions by measure would inflate the total amount of money raised or spent.
Specific policies
Data for support and opposition committees
Ballotpedia calculates campaign finance totals using data from political committees registered to support or oppose a ballot measure, as well as independent expenditures when relevant and available. When a committee is registered to support or oppose multiple measures, it is not possible to determine how much of its reported funds were used for any specific measure.
For each committee, Ballotpedia tracks the following data points:
- cash contributions
- in-kind contributions (such as goods and services provided directly)
- total contributions
- cash expenditures
- total expenditures (a combination of cash expenditures and in-kind contributions)
Contributions from one committee to another
In calculating campaign finance for supporting and opposing committees, Ballotpedia does not count donations or expenditures from one ballot measure committee to another since that would amount to counting the same money twice. This method is used to give the most accurate information concerning how much funding was actually provided to and spent by the opposing and supporting campaigns.
Ballotpedia subtracts out committee-to-committee contributions—both cash donations and in-kind contributions.
In-kind contributions
In-kind contributions (such as goods and services provided directly) are tracked separately from cash contributions but are included within any data showing total contributions to a committee. In-kind contributions are included in the total expenditures for a committee since the benefit of an in-kind contribution is conferred when the contribution is made and will, under most circumstances and state systems, not be later reported as an expenditure.
Expenditures that exceed contributions
Expenditures may exceed contributions. When this occurs, the committee may have accrued unpaid bills, have outstanding or unforgiven loans, or have provided in-kind contributions to another committee.
Top donors
Ballotpedia combines top donors for each side of a ballot measure and does not report top donors for each committee separately if there are multiple committees registered to support or oppose the same measure. Ballotpedia generally provides the top five donors to all the committees combined registered to support or oppose a ballot measure. In the event of ties among the top five largest donors, more top donors will be listed. In some cases, Ballotpedia lists all donors contributing more than a certain amount instead of the top five donors. For example, if two donors represent 90% of contributions, and all other donors represent less than 1% each, those two donors determined to be significant will be listed, but others may not be.
Processing reports
Campaign finance reports are generally processed for each committee within between one and three business days after the deadline for the report. In some cases, reports are filed late or reported by the state system several days after the deadline. In these cases, Ballotpedia processes the reports within between one and three business days of the report becoming available.
