How we research

Where the candidate lists come from

• State and local races come from the official candidate list published by the state's election office. For Indiana, that is the Indiana Election Division's list. We change an entry only when a source confirms a correction, such as a withdrawal.
• Federal races are compiled from public race listings.
• Ballot questions, including judicial retention questions, use the wording and placement on official precinct sample ballots.
• Candidates are listed alphabetically by last name, not in official ballot order, and never grouped by party. Incumbent is marked only where the state list or our research confirms it. Photos appear only when supplied with a candidate's permission.

How we match your address to your districts

• If you enter a street address, it goes from your browser to the U.S. Census Bureau's public geocoder, not to us. Your districts are then worked out on your device from public district boundary files.
• If you share your device location instead, the match is computed entirely on your device.
• We keep the districts, not your address or coordinates. They are stored in your browser for this session only, unless you choose to remember them on this device. Your picks stay in your browser too.
• Where we can't place a race from your location, we say so and point you to the official lookup rather than guess.

How race and candidate profiles are researched

• Nonpartisan: we describe policies, plans and public statements, with no ideology labels, predictions, endorsements or adjectives that take sides.
• Attributed: every factual line cites a source you can open. Criticisms and allegations say who made them. Direct quotes are used only when read in the cited source.
• Equal treatment: every candidate gets the same sections. When coverage is thin, we say what we couldn't find rather than fill space.
• Free sources: facts rest on government records, such as meeting minutes and official filings, and on freely available reporting. We don't use paywalled articles or campaign and outside-group ads.
• Right person, right place: a fact is used only when its source ties the name to this county, district or school corporation. Same-name records we can't confirm are noted as unconfirmed.
• Private matters stay private: no health details, and no religious affiliation or family details beyond a candidate's job.
• Sensitive items such as criminal cases, allegations or controversial remarks go through a separate editorial review before they are published.
• Each profile shows the date it was researched. Profiles not yet through editorial review are marked as a research draft.

In-office records

• For officeholders on the ballot, votes come from official records, such as the Indiana General Assembly, the Clerk of the U.S. House and govinfo.gov.
• Major bills are chosen by a fixed rule that doesn't look at the topic, so every officeholder's record is selected the same way.

Privacy and corrections

There are no accounts, ads, analytics or trackers on Civic. If you see something wrong or missing, tell us and we'll check it against the sources. Corrections: a dedicated inbox is being set up. Until then, confirm any detail with your election office through vote.gov.