Ballotpedia:Collaboration of the Month
The Ballotpedia collaboration of the month was started in 2009 for volunteers working to improve the site and build new content in different areas. This page provided suggestions for projects to contribute to, and the topics were rotated each month.
The collaboration of the month program ended in April 2015.
Collaboration of the month archive
2015
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April
The St. Joseph School District, the 16th-largest school district in Missouri, has been plagued by a stipend scandal. Ballotpedia first exposed the depth of corruption over a year ago, and provided thorough coverage as the story unraveled.
Watch the video below for an in-depth run-down on the St. Joseph School District scandal.
Click the links below for more information on the story.
March
Did you know there are 34 distinct political parties in the United States?
This month's volunteer project involves improving our pages on these political parties. Here are some steps you can take to participate.
- Open up our category of political party pages.
- Choose an article to improve.
- Add information.
- Add notable candidates.
- Add party themes.
- Add logos or images.
If you are looking for an example, our page on the Green-Rainbow Party has been improved. You can see the changes here.
Have a question? Contact us at editor@ballotpedia.org.February
Recently, President Obama gave his yearly State of the Union address. At Ballotpedia, we collect similar speeches made by many governors: the "State of the State." In Iowa, it is called the "Condition of the State" and in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia it is known as "State of the Commonwealth." Whichever name it goes by, these speeches are delivered to the state legislature and fulfill the requirement in most state constitutions that the governor must deliver an annual report to the legislature.
These speeches outline what a governor's priorities are for a particular year, notes some of the struggles their state may have faced in the past year or address some specific national trend. This month, we are asking for your help in collecting speeches from past years.
The steps are easy
- Find the text of a state of the state address given prior to 2011 and copy the link. For these older addresses, you'll get to do some deeper research in each state's historical archives.
- On another browser tab or new window, open the State of the state addresses page and click the "Edit" tab on the top of the page.
- In the code, scroll down past the 2015 information and find the year you want to add to.
- Add a line for your state and input the link. Using an asterisk in the code creates a bullet point on the wiki. A single set of brackets [ ] creates a link to an external website. Inside the brackets, paste the link, press the space bar, and insert the name of the state you're adding.
- Click "Preview" at the bottom of the page to make sure your changes look good, and then click "Save" and you're done!
Example code
We found the state of the state address given in Michigan in 2010 here. This is how we would add it.
The code before:
=2010=
{{colbegin|5}}
*[http://stateline.org/live/details/speech?contentId=452171 Illinois]
{{colend}}
The code after:
=2010=
{{colbegin|5}}
*[http://stateline.org/live/details/speech?contentId=452171 Illinois]
*[http://www.michigan.gov/documents/gov/SOS_Speech_310033_7.pdf Michigan]
{{colend}}
January
Happy new year!
This month we are talking about navigation on the site. Navigating Ballotpedia is easy once you are familiar with the many ways you can move through the site's contents. Check out our quick instructions on the ways you can access all of Ballotpedia's information on our help page.
To further enhance your wiki-browsing skills, learn about other navigation tools such as our Index of Contents, "All pages" tool and "What links here" tool. If you find two pages are related but do not link to each other, consider adding an internal link in the "See also" section or submit a link by emailing us at editor@ballotpedia.org.
Have a question? Contact us at editor@ballotpedia.org.2014
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December
December's Project of the Month
Election day is behind us! With election results in, our projects have released several reports analyzing the outcomes. Check them out below!
State executives
- Third-party candidates expand their influence in 2014 state executive elections
- Republican wave continues in 2014 with gains in gubernatorial elections
- Incumbents hold the line for their parties in 2014 state executive elections
Congress
State legislatures
- 2014 Election Review: Big gains for Republicans in state legislatures
- Low number of seats determined which state legislative chambers flipped
Ballot measures
- 2014 ballot measure results likely to affect future elections
- Local measure results rundown: Fracking, Marijuana, Minimum wage and GMOs
School boards
- Voter backlash down the ballot: Incumbency advantage drops in November's hottest school board races
- School board election wrap-up: Did the Republican wave extend down the ballot?
Municipal government
Have a question? Contact us at editor@ballotpedia.org.November
November's Project of the Month
On election night we tracked the hot races to answer some of our nation's big questions:
What are the big questions?
- Who ended up with majority control of the U.S. Senate?
- Did the Democratic Party reduce the Republican U.S. House majority?
- Who controls state governments?
- How many state legislative chambers changed hands?
- What happened to the governors elected in the 2010 Tea Party wave?
- What statewide ballot measures were approved?
- What happened to state supreme courts and the balance of power?
Answers on our Election results, 2014 page! To see our full coverage of election results please visit: Links to all election results, 2014.
Have a question? Contact us at editor@ballotpedia.org.October
October is here, just next month voters will be heading to their polling places! Do you know what the requirements are to vote in your state?
Our page on voting in the 2014 general elections contains the following information:
- Registration deadline
- Residency requirements
- Voter ID requirements
- Absentee voting requirements
- Absentee voting deadlines
- Early voting deadlines
Recent changes of note
- Ohio: A bill passed by the Ohio Legislature and the subsequent appeals to federal courts have resulted in last minute rulings surrounding the state's early voting requirements.
- Wisconsin: On September 12, 2014, a three-member panel of the Seventh Circuit court ruled photo identification requirements could take effect immediately.
Find specifics for your state below.
- A • Alabama • Alaska • Arizona • Arkansas • C • California • Colorado • Connecticut • D • Delaware • F • Florida • G • Georgia • H • Hawaii • I • Idaho • Illinois • Indiana • Iowa • K • Kansas • Kentucky • L • Louisiana • M • Maine • Maryland • Massachusetts • Michigan • Minnesota • Mississippi • Missouri • Montana • N • Nebraska • Nevada • New Hampshire • New Jersey • New Mexico • New York • North Carolina • North Dakota • O • Ohio • Oklahoma • Oregon • P • Pennsylvania • R • Rhode Island • S • South Carolina • South Dakota • T •Tennessee • Texas • U • Utah • V • Vermont • Virginia • W • Washington • West Virginia • Wisconsin • Wyoming
Have a question? Contact us at editor@ballotpedia.org.September
This September, we highlight an exciting project brought to you by our State Legislative Project on state legislative scorecards.
Ballotpedia is in the process of developing an encyclopedic list of published scorecards. Some states have a limited number of available scorecards or scorecards produced only by select groups. It is Ballotpedia’s goal to incorporate all available scorecards regardless of ideology or number. On Ballotpedia, we define scorecards as those produced by newspapers, interest groups, think tanks, partisan groups, 501c3s and 501c4s that provide relative rankings and covers all state or federal lawmakers.
The goal of this project is to provide a comprehensive list of legislative scorecards for each state and to ensure that descriptions are unbiased and accurate.
Have you seen a scorecard we've missed?
Please email us at scorecards@ballotpedia.org.
Please include the following in your e-mail:
- The link to the scorecard
- The name of the organization
- The state
- The year or session the grades were given
Find the list of scorecards in your state:
Alabama • Alaska • Arizona • Arkansas • California • Colorado • Connecticut • Delaware • Florida • Georgia • Hawaii • Idaho • Illinois • Indiana • Iowa • Kansas • Kentucky • Louisiana • Maine • Maryland • Massachusetts • Michigan • Minnesota • Mississippi • Missouri • Montana • Nebraska • Nevada • New Hampshire • New Jersey • New Mexico • New York • North Carolina • North Dakota • Ohio • Oklahoma • Oregon • Pennsylvania • Rhode Island • South Carolina • South Dakota • Tennessee • Texas • Utah • Vermont • Virginia • Washington • West Virginia • Wisconsin • Wyoming
Have a question? Contact us at editor@ballotpedia.org.August
Summer is almost at an end but before the November elections begin, August brings with it two election dates with ballot measures. On August 5, both Michigan and Missouri voters will cast their "yes" or "no" votes on a grand total of six measures; one of which will be on the Michigan ballot. Alaskans will vote on August 19 to repeal or uphold SB 21, an oil tax cuts bill. This year, in addition to profiles on every certified measure, Ballotpedia brings you "Fast Facts."
Watch the video below for a quick run-down on Alaska's Oil Tax Cuts Veto Referendum, Measure 1.
Click the links below for more on August's ballot measures. Looking for November measures? Click here.
August 5:
- Michigan Use Tax and Community Stabilization Share, Proposal 1
- Missouri Amendment 1
- Missouri Amendment 5
- Missouri Amendment 7
- Missouri Amendment 8
- Missouri Amendment 9
August 19:
July
Primaries are well under way and November elections are just around the corner. Do you know your state's absentee voting and early voting policies? Does your state allow online voter registration? What are your state's voter ID laws?
Just click on the links above or find your state below.
- A • Alabama • Alaska • Arizona • Arkansas • C • California • Colorado • Connecticut • D • Delaware • F • Florida • G • Georgia • H • Hawaii • I • Idaho • Illinois • Indiana • Iowa • K • Kansas • Kentucky • L • Louisiana • M • Maine • Maryland • Massachusetts • Michigan • Minnesota • Mississippi • Missouri • Montana • N • Nebraska • Nevada • New Hampshire • New Jersey • New Mexico • New York • North Carolina • North Dakota • O • Ohio • Oklahoma • Oregon • P • Pennsylvania • R • Rhode Island • S • South Carolina • South Dakota • T •Tennessee • Texas • U • Utah • V • Vermont • Virginia • W • Washington • West Virginia • Wisconsin • Wyoming
June
Whether you're a regular reader or trying your hand at editing for the first time, you can help us this month by catching an error!
We work hard every day to bring you the most accurate and up-to-date information about the issues and candidates on your ballot, but sometimes we get it wrong. This month, we're asking for your help identify those errors.
- Did we omit a word?
- Is someone's name misspelled?
- Do we have the wrong party affiliation for your state Senator?
- Does one of our pages says something will happen on a particular date and that date is in the past?
May
Since it's primary election season, this May we're highlighting two reports brought to you by our Congress Project on the subject of contested congressional primaries:
- Did you know there were 435 U.S. House seats up for election in 2012? In this report, Ballotpedia staff measured the competitiveness of the 2012 primary elections based on two factors: the number of contested primaries and the number of incumbents facing a primary challenge. The results illustrate how many primaries were contested. The first set of results represents how many of all national House of Representative primary elections were contested. The second set counts only those primaries in which one of the candidates is the incumbent member. In a similar vein, this competitiveness index is akin to that used in Ballotpedia's state legislative Competitiveness Study. These results illustrate how many congressional primaries were contested.
- Did you know that while there are a total of 435 congressional districts, only 143 districts have changed party hands throughout the past 10 years -- a mere 32.90% of all districts? This report details primary competition for U.S. House incumbents over the past five election cycles (2004-2012). Ballotpedia conducted this research in part after seeing the 2012 results, which showed an extreme lack of general election competition. Overall, 285 races (65.5 percent) had a margin of victory of greater than 20 percent. Of those 285 races, 145 were Democratic winners while 140 were Republican. In other words, most races are anti-climactic in the general election. If the general election is often a foregone conclusion, how competitive are primaries for incumbents? How often are incumbents challenged? The answer is: Not very often.
Looking for more information on congressional election coverage and unique reports? Click here.
April
It's spring time.
Spring time signals just one thing here at Ballotpedia - Primary election season is underway!
It's April, and primary elections have already come to pass in both Texas and Illinois. The remaining U.S. states will host primary elections over the next few months.
Just in case you still need to brush up on candidates and election information, this month we're highlighting Ballotpedia’s expansive election coverage brought to you by our major content projects. Ballotpedia is working diligently to cover six different types of elections in 2014: congressional, state legislative, state executive officials, statewide and local ballot measures, municipal government and school boards elections. Within these pages, you will find election overviews, filing deadlines, election dates, voter registration deadlines, candidate, incumbent and ballot measure information and original analysis.
March
Sunshine Week is a national initiative to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Sunshine Week seeks to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger. Essentially, the public has a right to know what its government is doing and why.
In honor of Sunshine Week (March 16 - 22), Ballotpedia is bringing to you: Thirty-one days of sunshine. Each day in March, we will be "shining a light on" one of our pages that contains important information that we want our readers to know. Not only will we post the running list of pages here, but they will also be posted on Ballotpedia's Facebook, Twitter and our main page.
Stay tuned for our daily updates!
February
At Ballotpedia, we continuously strive to provide a wonderful user experience for our readers. This February, we'd like to hear from you, the reader, about your experience using Ballotpedia:
Is there anything we, at Ballotpedia, can do to make your user experience better?
Take our quick, three question quality survey on your experience using Ballotpedia by clicking here.
January
Happy new year!
New year, fresh start - The Ballotpedia project teams are always looking for ways to get you the most up-to-date information and to bring you new information. January's collaboration project provides us the perfect opportunity to do so!
This month, we're updating our index of terms and definitions for all projects on Ballotpedia. Many of these terms and definitions are housed within multiple project pages while others are more project specific. Check out the expanded index of terms and definitions to see all of our available terms. See any we're missing? Simply add them yourself or send us an e-mail and we'll add them for you!
2013
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November & December
Election day is behind us!
We've been working hard bringing you updates on everything that happened earlier this month; it's time to take a little break. This month's project is a throwback to June's collaboration of the month: pictures!
Are you traveling over the holidays? Do your travels take you through any state capitals or famous national or state landmarks? If so, stop and snap a picture and send it to us, and we'll upload it to Ballotpedia!
You can e-mail your photos to editor@ballotpedia.org. Please only submit original photos you've taken and give us your full name so we can include it in the copyright information.
October
It's October.
- It's fall.
- The leaves are changing colors.
- Halloween decorations are going up.
- It's pumpkin flavor season for everything.
- ... It also means that elections are happening next month!
- ... It also means that elections are happening next month!
- It's pumpkin flavor season for everything.
- Halloween decorations are going up.
- The leaves are changing colors.
In preparation for voting in November elections, Ballotpedia's voter guides are all you'll need! Do you know your state's absentee voting and early voting policies? Does your state allow online voter registration? What are your state's voter ID laws? Find out on Ballotpedia!
Are you ready to vote in November?
September
The Ballotpedia project teams are always looking for opportunities to work with one another, and September's collaboration provides the perfect opportunity!
We are in the process of updating our index of the pages that writers in other projects are most likely to link to as they are working on their own projects. As you're navigating around the wiki, take note of some of the terms that you see on multiple pages. Check the index of terms to see if they're included on our list; if they are not, add them yourself or send us an e-mail!
August
The state legislatures and Congress teams need your help! Both of these projects like to incorporate unique news into their coverage: adding small, relevant stories of interest to pages of legislators, committees, members of Congress or elections.
July
Here at Ballotpedia, we're working to build new profiles for all the candidates running for office, and elected officials.
And you can help!
Biographical information
If you're an elected official, former elected official or a candidate for election, we'd like to encourage you to submit biographical information that can be incorporated into your profile page on Ballotpedia. Has your local newspaper profiled the new legislators in your area? Send the link(s) to editor@ballotpedia.org, and we'll incorporate them into our coverage!
Candidate verification
We also encourage candidates and officials to verify your resume with our background-screening partner, Candidate Verification. The cost is free to all candidates. We will provide links to your verified background report for our readers. To verify your resume, please click here.
Photos
Do you have a photo that could be appropriate for a candidate or elected official's page? We always welcome pictures of candidates and elected officials. If you have one, please click here to submit it and we'll upload it for you. Please only submit original photos you've taken and give us your full name so we can include it in the copyright information.
Remember: No matter how you contribute, you'll be helping to build our encyclopedia of state politics for generations to come!
June
Do you have a fantastic photo of the Grand Canyon, White House, Mount Rushmore or other noteworthy landmark? Are you touring national parks or love snapping photos of “Welcome to _______” state signs? Kick off this year’s road trip season right and send us your brag-worthy landmark photos in June!
Here at Ballotpedia, we work hard to not only update our many pages for our amazing readers but to also personalize our individual state pages. What better way to personalize these pages than with your very own original photos! So whether you are driving across the Golden Gate Bridge or making a pit-stop at the Alamo, (1) snap a photo of a landmark, (2) send the photo to us and (3) we’ll upload and add it to that state’s page on Ballotpedia. It’s as easy as 1-2-3!
You can e-mail your photos to editor@ballotpedia.org. Please only submit original photos you've taken and give us your full name so we can include it in the copyright information.
May
We always want to make it as easy as possible to join the Ballotpedia community as an editor, but this month we're really making it a priority. We understand that people come to us with a wide variety of skills and interests, and we want to make sure our Help Center offers something to everyone. Take a few minutes, browse through the page and let us know what makes sense, what doesn't make sense, what you want more information about and ask any questions you may have. You can e-mail us, tweet at us or post your suggestions on our post on our Facebook page. A few question you can keep in mind as you evaluate our help pages:
- Do you know how to create a user account?
- How easily can you find information about how to add a reference link on a page?
- Are these pages easy to navigate?
- Do you know where to get more information, or who to ask if you have questions?
- What is missing from these pages?
April
This month, we're focusing on you! We want to make your Ballotpedia experience better, but we can't do it without you. Whether you're a regular reader or trying your hand at editing for the first time, you can help us this month by catching an error!
We work hard every day to bring you the most accurate and up-to-date information about the issues and candidates on your ballot, but sometimes we get it wrong. This month, we're asking for your help in identifying those errors.
- Did we omit a word somewhere?
- Is someone's name misspelled?
- Do we have the wrong party affiliation for your state Senator?
- Does one of our pages says something will happen on a particular date, and that date is in the past?
Let us know! Send an e-mail to editor@ballotpedia.org with a link to the page and a brief description of the error. We'll respond to thank you and let you know when the change has been made. If you're comfortable, you can make the change yourself - check out our Help page to get started.
There will be a few other opportunities to engage with the staff throughout the month, like live chatting with one of our writers to get help answering your questions. But the one we're most excited about is having our readers judge our semi-annual editing contest. You get to decide which page is the best! Our goal is to find better ways to gather and display information. Sound like fun? Check back between April 8th and April 18th, and follow us on Twitter @Ballotpedia or like us on Facebook to stay up to date with everything we're doing.
March
It's hard for voters to find good information about local ballot measures. You can help bridge that information gap for our readers who are thirsty for information about what's happening in their city or town.
Since 2009, Ballotpedia has covered all local ballot measures in 11 states. This year, we are hoping to expand our coverage and are recruiting volunteers to cover local ballot measure elections in each of the 50 states. If you live in one of the 11 states we already cover, we need your help to provide even more detailed coverage. If you live in one of the 39 states we don't cover yet, we need you to help us develop this type of information.
If you're interested in participating, you can check out our page dedicated this to project for more details, or contact Josh Altic if you have any questions!
February
We cover a lot on Ballotpedia, from statewide ballot measures, state executives and state legislatures to redistricting, ballot measure law and Congress.
But did you know that we also cover recall? At Ballotpedia we have articles on the 38 states that have provisions for the recall of elected officials. But as with all of our projects, we are always looking for ways to improve and expand our pages. Laws about the intricacies of the recall process are not always very clear or readily available, so you'd be helping to locate and research these laws and create a publicly accessible database. You'll play a key role in creating an encyclopedic overview of how voters engage with federal, state and local recall questions throughout history, adding tremendous archival value for historians, scholars and journalists.
If you're interested in volunteering and helping expand our coverage of recalls:
- Send an email to editor@ballotpedia.org to let her know of your interest and ask whatever questions you may have.
- Post a link to this page on your Facebook or Twitter account and ask your friends/followers to consider getting involved in this project.
January
With last year's elections and the winter holidays in the rearview mirror, elected officials around the country are preparing for the new year. Some are packing up their offices while others are preparing to officially begin their new duties. Here at Ballotpedia, we're working to build new profiles for all the legislators and executives who were elected for the first time. And you can help!
Has your local newspaper profiled the new legislators in your area? Send the link(s) to editor@ballotpedia.org and we'll incorporate them into our coverage! Or maybe you worked as part of a campaign and you know the elected official personally. If that's the case, you can have them submit their bio directly to us using our online biographical information form.
2012
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November & December
Election day is behind us! We've been working hard bringing you updates on everything that happened earlier this month; it's time to take a little break. This month's project is a throwback to August's collaboration of the month: pictures!
Are you traveling over the holidays? Do your travels take you through any state capitals? If so, stop and snap a picture of the governor's mansion and send it to us, and we'll upload and add it to our page on the residences of the American governors!
You can e-mail your photos to the editor. Please only submit original photos you've taken and give us your full name so we can include it in the copyright information.
October
The November 6th elections are just around the corner. Thousands of candidates and hundreds of ballot measures are up for election this fall. What will you be doing the night of November 6 after you cast your vote? Volunteer to help alongside Ballotpedia staff writers as we update election results! You'll learn how to edit the wiki, interact with our project directors and staff writers, get a "behind the scenes" look at the structure of Ballotpedia and provide an invaluable service to the rest of our readers.
Volunteers will be required to attend two webinars during the month of October. To attend these webinars, you'll need either: 1) a computer with a built-in microphone or 2) a computer and a phone. On election night, you'll need access to either Skype or Google chat.
Interested? Fill out this form and we'll be in touch with some more details. Make sure to include your e-mail address so we can contact you with updates! If you have trouble accessing the form, or if you have any questions, please e-mail Bailey Ludlam and include:
- e-mail address
- availability the night of November 6 (example: 10pm - 2am CT or 4pm - 7pm CT)
- availability for webinars in October (example: Mondays and Wednesdays after 12pm CT)
Note: At least 3 volunteers are required to launch the program. If we don't reach the minimum, don't worry - we'll probably have a few post-election projects.
September
Back to school! As teachers across the country are calling roll in their classrooms, here at Ballotpedia we're compiling a roll call list of our own - candidates! All 50 states will be holding elections on November 6, 2012. Prior to the election, states are required to release the official lists of candidates who will appear on the general election ballot. We've built a page to aggregate the official lists as they are released, and this month we're asking for help from our readers to make it happen.
Some states place sample ballots online, broken down by district. Others publish full candidate lists in a single document. Whichever the case may be, you can follow these easy steps to add official candidate lists to our page:
- Find the official candidate list for a particular state and copy the link.
- Open our page in your browser: Official lists of candidates in statewide elections, 2012
- Scroll down to the state for which you'd like to add a list and click [edit]. You should see code that looks like this:
- ==California==
- :: ''See also: [[California State Senate elections, 2012]]'' and ''[[California State Assembly elections, 2012]]''
- On the next line, type:
- *[LINK Text you want to display]
- Start the line with an asterisk (*) and then open a square bracket ([). Paste the full link in, add a space, and type the text you want to display on the page - usually something like North Carolina State Board of Elections - Official candidate list.
- For example, if you look at the Illinois section (to which a link has already been added), you'll see this code:
- *[http://www.elections.il.gov/ElectionInformation/EIPdfViewer.aspx?ListType=ALL%2bCANDIDATES%2bAS%2bOF%2b1%252f6%252f2012+12%253a11%2bPM&ElectionID=32&ElectionType=GP&ElectionDate=3%2f20%2f2012&StatusSearchType=Matches&Status=AP&SearchType=CandFiling&OrderBy=ORDER+BY+OfficeBallotGroup%2c+OfficeSequence%2c+PartySequence%2c+FileDateTime%2c+vwCandidates.Sequence%2c+LotteryLastName%2c+LotteryFirstName&ReportType=MediaReport&ReportFileName=CanMedia.rpt Illinois State Board of Elections - List of all Primary candidates]
- When you save the page, the code displays like this:
August
If you've found this page, you probably know that Ballotpedia is an online almanac of state politics. But what you may not know is part of our goal is to create an archive of photos relating to state politics. This includes photos of incumbents, candidates, campaign logos, campaign signs and campaign-related events.
We have profiles pages for all incumbents and candidates, but some of them are lacking a picture. Do you have a picture of a candidate that we could use on the site? If so, you can submit it by clicking here. Please only submit original photos and include the copyright information in your e-mail.
We are also soliciting photos of local campaign signs, either for ballot measures or statewide elections. If you see a campaign side on the side of the road, snap a picture with your camera or phone and send it our way! We'll upload it to the site and include it on the relevant pages and you'll be helping us build a pictorial history of state politics in the United States.
If you attend a campaign rally, why not take a picture and submit it for inclusion on Ballotpedia? Here is an example of a reader-submitted photo, taken at a September 13, 2011 rally in Raleigh, North Carolina regarding the North Carolina Same-Sex Marriage, Amendment 1 (May 2012).
July
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Can you believe 2012 is halfway over? July is a relatively quiet month in terms of elections, so we figured it would be the perfect time to highlight Ballotpedia's latest original news report: The Executive Summary. It's a bi-monthly news report prepared by our team of state executive reporters. The reports provide comprehensive coverage of everything related to the state executive offices, from elections and appointments to controversies and current events. With each edition of the Executive Summary, you'll get the most important and relevant information about state executives across the country. You can read the reports on-line or sign-up to have them delivered to your inbox every other Thursday - just put your e-mail in the box to the right!
- The Executive Summary: First edition Jun 14, 2012
- The Executive Summary: Elections, candidate filings and new appointments Jun 28, 2012
The Executive Summary is the latest in a series of feature pieces that Ballotpedia staff produce. You can read about which new ballot measures are coming up with The Tuesday Count, make sense of all the various state legislative deadlines and special sessions with the State Legislative Tracker and keep up-to-date on ballot measure law with the Ballot Law Update. We also have archived, in-depth coverage of the 2010 census redistricting process in the Redistricting Roundup - a weekly series that was published between January 28, 2011 and March 30, 2012.
Want to help out? The state executive team is always looking for good stories to add to the report! If you see something, you can add it to the State executive official news desk or send an e-mail to StateExecutives@ballotpedia.org. Feel free to use that same e-mail address if you have any questions or comments about this month's project.
June
5,999 seats of the country's 7,384 state legislative seats are up for election in the November 6, 2012 state legislative elections.
Here at Ballotpedia, we've developed a unique rubric - know as the "Competitiveness Index" - to measure how competitive each state's legislative elections actually are. The index weighs three factors in determining how competitive an election is:
- If the incumbent does run for re-election, does he or she draw a primary challenger?
- Are there two major party candidates in the general election?
- Is the incumbent running for re-election or not?
This year, a team of Ballotpedia researchers, led by Project Director Tyler King, are analyzing and compiling a state-to-state comparison of primary elections, general elections and open seats.
How you can help - submit candidate information
With almost 6,000 seats up for election, we need all the help we can get making sure our candidate lists are up-to-date. Do you know of a candidate running for office we don't have a profile for yet? Is there more information we could add to an existing page that would improve our coverage? Or are you a candidate yourself, wanting to provide more information for your own page? We encourage you to use our biography submission form. Thanks, in advance!
May
The 2012 election season really heats up in May. There are primary elections, candidate filing deadlines, and ballot certifications going on what seems like every day. At Ballotpedia, we couldn't be more excited, and we've built election plans to let our readers know exactly what kind of coverage they can expect from us. You can read all about what you can look forward to in the coming months in four of our projects: Congress, state executives, state legislatures and ballot measures.
But our elections plans are just the tip of the iceberg. This month, we are asking for our readers to help us add links to official and unofficial voter guides for all 50 states.
April
We cover a lot on Ballotpedia, from statewide ballot measures, insurance commissioners and state legislatures to redistricting, recall and Congress.
But did you know that we also cover local ballot measures? At the moment, we cover local measures in 11 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin. With your help, we can expand that coverage to include local ballot measure elections in all 50 states.
When volunteers on Ballotpedia like you can cover local ballot measures in more counties and more states, we will be able to detect patterns and trends both in the types of political topics that show up on local ballots, and in their approval/rejection rates. By volunteering to research and write about local ballot measures in your part of the country, your work will become part of a rich national tapestry.
If you're interested in volunteering and helping expand our coverage of local ballot measures:
- Read through the FAQs on the volunteer page to get an overview of what to expect if you are interested in volunteering in this area.
- Send an email to editor@ballotpedia.org to let us know of your interest and ask whatever questions you may have.
- Post a link to this page on your Facebook or Twitter account and ask your friends/followers to consider getting involved in this project.
You can also check out our page dedicated this to project for more details!
March
Everyone is familiar with the President's State of the Union address. At Ballotpedia, we've begun archiving similar speeches made by each of the 50 governors: the "State of the State." In Iowa, it's called the "Condition of the State" and in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia it's known as "State of the Commonwealth." Whichever name it goes by, these speeches are delivered to the state legislature and fulfill the requirement in most state constitutions that the governor must deliver an annual report to the legislature.
These speeches outline what a governor's priorities are for a particular year, notes some of the struggles their state may have faced in the past year or address some specific national trend. At Ballotpedia, we thought it would be interesting to compile a page of each for as far back as we go. That's where you come in! This project combines internet research with wiki-editing and can be a good place to start if you're testing our your wiki skills. We've already started a page to collect the archived speeches: State of the state addresses, so all you have to do is add links under the appropriate years!
The steps are easy:
- Find the text of an address you can add to our page and copy the link. Stateline is a great place to find state of the state addresses from 2002 - 2011. For older addresses, you'll get to do some deeper research in each state's historical archives.
- On another browser tab (or a new window if you'd prefer) open the State of the state addresses page and click the "Edit" tab on the top of the page.
- In the code, find the year you want to add to. Below these instructions is an example of how the year 2011 looks in the code.
- Add a line for your state and input the link. Using an asterisk in the code creates a bullet on the wiki. A single set of brackets [ ] creates a link to an external website. Inside the brackets, paste the link, press the space bar, and insert the name of the state you're adding.
- Click "Preview" at the bottom of the page to make sure your changes look good, and then click "Save" and you're done!
=2011= <--- Using just one "=" around a heading will make it a tab.
{{colbegin|5}} <--- This code will put a list in 5 columns.
*[http://stateline.org/live/details/speech?contentId=540472 Alabama]
*[http://stateline.org/live/details/speech?contentId=540474 Arkansas]
...
*[http://stateline.org/live/details/speech?contentId=540512 Wyoming]
{{colend}} <--- This code tells the wiki to end the columns
February
Did you know that Ballotpedia doesn't just cover current politics? We have historic ballot measure pages that date all the way back to 1900! With all of that information, there's a lot of work that needs to be done in order to get the pages looking their best. Throughout the month of February, we'll be focusing the efforts of our staff and volunteers on adding election results box templates to Ohio's ballot measure articles from 1931 through 2008.
These templates give a clean and consistent look across the wiki and provide our readers with valuable information about the votes on individual ballot measures. Here's an example of a template in use, taken from our page on an unsuccessful ballot measure from 1926 that would have eliminated Ohio's compulsory primary:
| Initiated Issue 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Result | Votes | Percentage | ||
| 743,313 | 64.72% | |||
| Yes | 405,152 | 35.28% | ||
Simple enough, right? By adding just a few lines of code, we are able to present you - our readers - with the information you're looking for in an easily digestible manner.
Want to help us out? Or learn more about out ballot measures project? Contact the Ballot Measures Project Director to learn how you can help us build a part of history!
January
2012 is finally here! And at Ballotpedia, that means one thing: elections. This month, we're highlighting the work of the state executive officials team as they work to build election and candidate pages. As one of Ballotpedia's newest projects, this is only the second year covering state executive elections - and this year there is quite a jump in the number of elections. In 2011, only three states had regularly scheduled state executive elections.
This year, twenty-one states are scheduled to hold elections to fill 83 executive positions, providing ample opportunity for you to get involved and help us build up our election and candidate pages.
There are several types of pages we have for election coverage:
- State executive official elections, 2012 gives an overview of all election dates and breaks down the election by both state and office
- Each state has its own page that highlights key deadlines, information about primary elections, and a more detailed explanation of each race.
- The races at the top of the ballot (Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General) have separate pages for each race. These pages provide background information about the incumbent (running for re-election, retiring, term-limited from running again, et cetera) and offer in-depth analyses of campaign financing, race tracking, and polling.
So whether you're interested in building candidate profiles, expanding our coverage of background information on a particular race, tracking candidate filing deadlines, or compiling campaign finance reports and polling data, we can use your help. We encourage you to browse through the state executive election pages and find a place where you can add information to make our site better.
2011
| Community |
|---|
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| Getting started |
| How to help Contact us |
| Help |
December
Ballotpedia is growing! We recently launched a new project, and we're excited to announce we've started to cover Congress. The project is still in the early stages of development, so it's perfect time to try your hand at editing.
The main project page goes into more details, but here's a snapshot. We're just finishing the first step: building profiles on all 535 current members of Congress. Now there are five main types of articles we're working to build and expand upon:
- Profiles of candidates for Congress.
- Articles that are overviews of elections.
- Profiles of the 435 Congressional Districts.
- Profiles of the Congressional committees
- Features of U.S. Congress such as historical session information and leadership pages
We've put together a guide to getting started, outlining the first steps to get the project rolling. Our niche for coverage this first cycle will be primary elections, but feel free to add to any of our pages. The month of December will focus specifically on building profiles of candidates and election overview pages.
November
Election season is upon us! Most of our staff time this month is dedicated to election reporting, original analysis and changing the wiki to reflect the most current results. We are working to bring you interesting, relevant coverage of election-related news. And what better way to learn about the elections that with Ballotpedia's new podcast: the Ballotpedia Voice!
You can learn about ballot measures, candidates and much more. The best part about it? You can listen on-line or find us in the iTunes store! Just search for "Ballotpedia" and subscribe today!
October
The Ballotpedia project teams are always looking for opportunities to work with one another, and October's collaboration provides the perfect opportunity. We are in the process of building an index of the pages that writers in other projects are most likely to link to as they are working on their own projects.
The page is organized using tabs, with a dedicated section for each project. Now, our writers who work primarily on recalls can come to this new page and know the exact terminology to use when writing about the role an attorney general plays in the initiative process, and our state legislature staff will know whether the name or title comes first when writing a news story about state executive officers.
This project is a perfect opportunity for new users to start editing! As you're navigating around the wiki, take note of some of the terms that you see on multiple pages. Check the index of terms to see if they're included on our list; if they are not, add them yourself!
September
September marks the beginning of a new school and for students and teachers across the nation. For the Ballotpedia staff, it means a renewed effort to categorize our images!
- Categories are a tool we use on Ballotpedia to help keep track of all our articles, images, and pages. We place articles in categories with others in a related topic. Every page on the wiki should have at least one category; you can find them at the bottom of each page. For example, you can tell this page is in the ''Community'' category because on the bottom of the page it says Category:Community. The categories provide an easy way for us to organize the wiki and navigate between pages. Take some time to explore the different categories you find on pages and see what you can discover.
Our project this month features the work of our entire staff - not just one team. We have all been working hard to make sure all images have categories, but we have come to realize that some of the image categories are too broad. We are now creating sub-categories for Category:Ballot measure images.
You can see our progress here. At the month's beginning, we only had three sub-categories and over 300 images that still needed further categorization.
August
The state legislatures team needs your help! They have recently introduced a new aspect into their coverage: unique news. The idea is to add small, relevant stories of interest to pages of legislators, committees, or elections. Here are a few examples of what they have done so far:
- A state legislator proposes a tobacco tax
- One legislator holds a yearly gathering for current and aspiring political figures
- Redistricting coverage
The team uses a news desk to compile stories that could be of interest. If you are interested in working on this project, that page is a good place to start for generating story ideas. Or, you might even be aware of a local story that we have not yet seen!
Please contact the State Legislature Project Director if you have any questions specific to this month's project.
Follow up from Project Director
In August 2011, the monthly collaboration project focused on unique news additions for the state legislative project. The goal here was -- and is -- to add original and unique news additions to profiles, chambers, committees and election pages.
Over the course of the month, unique news pieces were added to more than 80 state legislator pages. Among the many different topics covered were state legislators declaring an intent to run for election in 2012 and the California State Assembly declaring individual budgets were not public record.
These types of additions to the wiki pages provide an individuality to that gives it a sense of originality from other pages in the project.
Over the course of the coming months ahead, the state legislative project will continue to focus on adding unique news components to profiles.
Thanks!
Tyler King, Project Director for State Legislatures
July
The latest installment of our Monthly Collaboration comes from our ballot measures team. They are working to improve two decades worth of ballot measures, and the focus of this month is 1990 ballot measures. We'll work to make sure each of the measures is featured in chart form, and add an introduction explaining everything. The end-of-the-month goal is for the pages to look similar to our 2010 ballot measures page, with each of the ballot measures featured in chart form and a short introduction on the main page.
Please contact the Ballot Measures Project Director if you have any questions specific to this month's project.
2010
May
March
The 50!s
This is a project we started to get sprout articles and charts started for all years and ballot measures in the 1950s.
- {{1958 ballot measures}} | {{1956 ballot measures}} | {{1954 ballot measures}} | {{1952 ballot measures}} | {{1950 ballot measures}}
February
Quality improvement for ballot measures that were not on the ballot. For project details see:
- See Ballotpedia:Articles that need updating#"Not on ballot" articles to update for individual articles to fix.
2009
October
Let's get them right!
- Maine 2009 ballot measures
- New Jersey 2009 ballot measures
- Ohio 2009 ballot measures
- Texas 2009 ballot measures
- Washington 2009 ballot measures
September
With a signature lawsuit about the signatures on Washington R-71, it would be a good time to expand Ballotpedia's coverage on what a valid signature is, signature requirements, signature challenges, post-certification signature challenges and related topics.
August
The August 2009 Collaboration of the Month is creating a better organizational structure for local ballot measures.
Status: We made very good progress on this.
- County templates were made for each of the 50 states that list out local ballot measures by county.
- We made the decision to include local ballot measure election dates in the main county template for each state as in this example: {{Maine counties}}. Templates have been changed to adjust to this new format in about 10 states, including states with many local ballot measures, such as Colorado, Washington and Ohio.
- Contributors have started adding a link on county pages to the county's Department of Elections. This has been finished in about 8-10 states.
July
- Activists, donors and organizations.
Although Ballotpedia has a number of articles about individuals and organizations that are involved in one way or another with ballot measures, this information has not been organized into a project. I am advocating that during July, we focus on creating some good ways of organizing and improving all this material, such as by:
- Creating an official project, with an associate work template and user badge.
- Making sure that categories for activists, donors and organizations are consistent from state-to-state.
- Establishing more thorough writing guidelines and standards for this type of article.
June
- News.
This project has consisted of better organizing how news related to ballot measures, recall campaigns and state legislators is covered. A new feature created during June was the {{Assignment Desk}}.
May
- State officials.
Statewide officeholders such as the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General often have specific constitutional duties with regard to ballot measures. With that in mind, it would be helpful to readers to have a reference for who those officeholders are. The Officials project shows you where there are articles, and where articles are needed. The project for May 2009 is to get a good start on a useful collection of articles about these state officials.
April
It's an odd-numbered election year without many petition drive deadlines so let's go back and work on improving articles by year of statewide ballot measures for 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007.
- There's a Style guide with some great ideas on how to best format these articles.
- Progress report: Great work done on all the years in this project. 1989, 1991, 1993 and 1995 are mostly done. 1997, 2001 and 2003 are close to done. 1999 and 2005 need the most additional work. January 13:56, 1 May 2009 (CDT)
March
California has a special statewide election on May 19 where voters will weigh in on seven ballot propositions. There's a growing library of information on Ballotpedia about local ballot measures as California school bond elections, November 2008, ranked by amount requested attests, but not as much about historical statewide propositions.
The March project is about adding information about older California ballot measures, from 1922 to 1990. Start your engines.
- Thanks for starting this collaboration. I'll probably work on adding information to 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000. (Polycal).
February
We've all heard about the "big" recalls but what is there to learn about mayoral, city council, school board, county commission and special district recalls? In 2009 so far, Ballotpedia is covering 20 recall campaigns about specific politicians and eight cases where an attempt is being made to recall entire groups.
Please add more detail to the 2009 recalls and help fill in our list of recalls going back to 1911.
Great job again! Contributors got articles going about 33 recalls set for 2009. January
January
Ballotpedia has a small but growing portal about local ballot measures. In January 2009, we'd like to encourage Ballotpedia contributors to focus on growing this part of Ballotpedia.
California school district bond elections, November 2008 is an example of a very useful list of local school bond elections in California. Some of the related articles that could be developed are:
Great job! January 16:21, 30 January 2009 (CST)
We added articles about local ballot measures in nineteen states!