Ballotpedia
Ballotpedia
Type of business | Nonprofit |
---|---|
Wiki | |
Available in | English |
Headquarters | United States |
Owner | Lucy Burns Institute |
Website | |
Alexarank | |
Commercial | No |
Launched | May 30, 2007[2] |
Current status | Active |
Ballotpedia is a nonprofit and nonpartisan online political encyclopedia written by a staff of researchers and writers.[3][4] Founded in 2007, it covers American federal, state, and local politics, elections, and public policy.[5][6][7][8] Ballotpedia is sponsored by the Lucy Burns Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Middleton, Wisconsin. As of 2014, Ballotpedia employed 34 writers and researchers;[9] it reported an editorial staff of over 50 in 2018.[10]
Type of business | Nonprofit |
---|---|
Wiki | |
Available in | English |
Headquarters | United States |
Owner | Lucy Burns Institute |
Website | |
Alexarank | |
Commercial | No |
Launched | May 30, 2007[2] |
Current status | Active |
Mission
Ballotpedia's stated goal is "to inform people about politics by providing accurate and objective information about politics at all levels of government."[10] The website "provides information on initiative supporters and opponents, financial reports, litigation news, status updates, poll numbers, and more."[11] It originally was a "community-contributed web site, modeled after Wikipedia" which is now edited by paid staff. It "contains volumes of information about initiatives, referenda, and recalls."[12]
In 2008, InfoWorld called Ballotpedia one of the "Top 20 Election Day Web sites and online tools."[13]
According to the Colorado Springs Gazette in 2013, "Ballotpedia is a nonprofit wiki encyclopedia that uses nonpartisan collaboration to gather political info for sharing."[14]
History
On July 9, 2013, Sunshine Review was acquired by the Lucy Burns Institute and merged into Ballotpedia.[17] The Lucy Burns Institute is named after suffragist Lucy Burns who along with Alice Paul founded the National Woman's Party. Judgepedia was merged into Ballotpedia in March 2015.
During the 2018 United States elections, Ballotpedia supplied Amazon Alexa with information on polling place locations and political candidates.[20]
Judgepedia
According to its original website, the goal of Judgepedia was "to help readers discover and learn useful information about the court systems and judiciary in the United States."[28]
Judgepedia had a weekly publication titled Federal Courts, Empty Benches which tracked the vacancy rate for Article III federal judicial posts.[30]
Reception and studies
Ballotpedia has been mentioned in The Washington Post' politics blog, "The Fix";[31] in The Wall Street Journal;[32] and in Politico.[33]
Judgepedia has also been cited in The Washington Post [34] and its Volokh Conspiracy blog,[35] in The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog,[36] and in The New York Times' "The Caucus" politics blog.[37] The Orange County Register noted Judgepedia's coverage of Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court.[38] Judgepedia's profile of Elena Kagan was included in the Harvard Law School Library's guide to Kagan's Supreme Court nomination and the Law Library of Congress's guide to Kagan.[39][40]
In 2015, Harvard University visiting scholar Carl Klarner conducted a study for Ballotpedia which found that state legislative elections have become less competitive over time, with 2014's elections being the least competitive elections in the past 40 years.[41]
Ballotpedia has helped spotlight the unnecessarily complex language used in various U.S. ballot measures.
In 2017, with a sample of 27 issues from nine states, the group determined that, on average, ballot descriptions required a graduate-level education to understand the complex wording of issues, with the average American adult only reading at a 7th to 8th grade reading level.
A Georgia State University analysis of 1200 ballot measures over a decade showed that voters were more likely to skip complex issues altogether.[42] Further, some ballot language confuses potential voters with the use of double negatives.
A few states require plain-language explanations of ballot wording.[43]