SUBSCRIBE NOW!

Vol. 41 No. 8 — October 2024

All of this is made worse in the current culture of disinformation, where the quaint notion of truth has been trampled by the have-it-your-own-way notion of alternative facts. But voters, politicians, and journalists cannot credibly claim ignorance because there is Ballotpedia. Ballotpedia is a giant, sprawling compendium of U.S. elections and politics, from the looming clash of the presidential candidates to school board election slates.

GRASSROOTS BEGINNING

Ballotpedia grew out of the frustrations of a Wisconsin citizen, Leslie Graves, as she encountered roadblocks when filing Freedom of Information Act requests. Her work in attempting to gather this information led to the establishment in 2006 of the Lucy Burns Institute (named for a prominent Progressive Era suffragist). The institute steadily expanded with election information as well as data on administrative, legislative, and judicial functions at federal, state, and local levels. It has conducted business using the name Ballotpedia since 2016.

Ballotpedia has grown into a large project with more than 6 dozen employees. It is a nonprofit that is supported by donations and revenues from premium fee-based products. There is a small ad presence. It describes itself as strictly nonpartisan, striving to be the “nation’s premier resource for unbiased information on elections, politics, and policy.” The site itself is free and doesn’t require registration. Most of its content is produced by staffers, but for certain types of specialized data, such as polling results, it uses authoritative external sources.

2024 ELECTIONS

This year, of course, Ballotpedia is a go-to destination for all things electoral. For the presidential race, its coverage includes major and minor candidates, candidate policy positions, the primaries, campaigns, campaign finances, polling, conventions, debates, and the voting. It provides historical data and is also a comprehensive news service, featuring same-day reports on breaking stories such as the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and President Biden’s decision to step down. Much of this is followed mostly by insiders, but the data on policy positions are particularly useful for voters. On 46 important issues, Ballotpedia tracks the positions of all of the candidates, using their own statements and position papers to avoid any charges of partisan interpretation.

Ballotpedia’s election coverage continues for down-ballot races, but with less detail than for the presidency:

• Congress—candidate bios and political records, patterns of party control

• State—executive, legislative, and judge races

• Local/municipal—the 100 largest U.S. cities by population, as well as elections for mayors, city council members, and district attorneys in each state capital, along with 475 school districts, including all school districts in the 100 largest cities by population and the 200 largest school districts by student enrollment

THE ‘PEDIA’ IN BALLOTPEDIA

Although Ballotpedia is perhaps best known for its election coverage, it rightly self-describes as the “digital encyclopedia of American politics and elections,” with several substantial reference assets:

• Current presidential administration —principal actions and officials, including executive orders, key legislation, cabinet members, judicial nominations, and senior staff

• American government—concise exposition of the operations of federal, state, and local governments

• Public policy—detailed analysis of eight major public policy issues, including criminal justice, the administrative state, federalism, and education

• Election legislation tracker—tracking of election laws by state

• Newsletters—11 daily and weekly newsletters covering principal political and policy developments at federal, state, and local levels

• Sample ballot lookup tool—displays the ballot for the next election by location

NAVIGATING BALLOTPEDIA

Ballotpedia has 500,000-plus pages across a dizzying array of federal, state, and local political topics. There are four finding tools:

• Side-panel subject navigation

• Alphabetical index

• Topical index

• Full-text search panel

These vary in efficiency. The sidebar navigation panel is the most convenient: It has a four-level classification that moves from broad subjects to individual sections. The alphabetical index is unsuited for such a large database. The topical index shows no systematic organization. The full-text search has options that are neither intuitive nor explained, and search results cannot be sorted. Fortunately, the Ballotpedia content itself is logically organized, and with a little bit of browsing and back-and-forthing in the side navigation panels, it’s possible to find what you’re seeking.

Most of Ballotpedia is kept scrupulously up-to-date, but there are a few archival sections. Election Policy (not to be confused with Public Policy, mentioned previously) provides in-depth data on a variety of key policy issues, including education, healthcare, and immigration by state. It stopped updating around 2017. The Ballotpedia News Updates covered national and state political news, but they were discontinued in 2020. Ballotpedia’s newsletters (see the previous section) carry over this reporting to a small extent. The discontinued sections still have some historical reference value.

ALL ELECTIONS COUNT

Ballotpedia began with one determined citizen’s efforts to seek government transparency. With an aspiration to provide ever more information on government processes at all levels, it has expanded to cover state, congressional, and presidential elections, as well as extending its coverage of municipal and local contests. With political stakes as high as they now are, Ballotpedia stands behind the principle that all elections count.