Ballotpedia

This time last summer, we were racking our brains to come up with our 2024 Voter Toolkit Campaign. With a little help from Rihanna, the mania of Brat Summer, and the Duolingo Owl, we ideated until we came up with our beloved Beep. On his first birthday (you'll notice his birth chart on slide 5!), we want to tell the story of how Beep came to be. Though meant to be irreverent and a bit silly, we do want our little Beep to be a friendly reminder that you will always, always have us in your corner when voting. We remain focused on delivering the robust information voters need to make informed and confident decisions. Happy Birthday, Beep! 🎂

For another month, Ballotpedia sits at the top of the Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart—the gold standard for measuring news source reliability and bias. Each time this chart comes out, we are so proud. It is such an apt visual representation of our commitment to giving you the facts about elections, candidates, ballot measures, politics, and public policy. No spin. No agenda. Just reliable information you can trust. This recognition isn't really ours. It belongs to all of you: our readers who believe that democracy works best when voters have access to accurate, nonpartisan information. So please, join us in celebrating! Research a historical ballot measure! Find a niche policy page! Share the news with voters in your life! But most importantly: keep using Ballotpedia as your go-to source for election information.

Between January 1 and June 30—the first 26 weeks of the year—Ballotpedia has covered 23,454 elections on 47 unique election dates. Political observers often note that every year is an election year, highlighting that many important elections take place in odd-numbered years, which tend to receive less attention and coverage. But that observation could be taken one step further: almost every week is an election week somewhere in the country. At least one election has been held on all 25 Tuesdays of 2025, the most commonly used election date. Ballotpedia has covered elections on 14 Saturdays, most of which were local elections in Delaware, but also include major statewide general elections in Texas and runoffs related to those elections. Elections on other days of the week are rarer. We've covered elections on three Mondays, two Thursdays, two Fridays, and one Wednesday. All of this to say, Beep is taking ❌no days off❌ as we work to find robust data about America's local elections and candidates, because the only unknown on your ballot should be who gets your vote.

We hope you're enjoying all the best things summer has to offer: traveling, sunny pool days, and fresh fruit. We know, at this time of the year, we might not be on your mind, but you are always on ours! Local elections are happening every Tuesday for the rest of the season. So, when you're sitting poolside or waiting at your gate in the airport, take a minute to stay informed about the local races and candidates in your community. Much like the fruit at your local farmer's market, our information is timely, fresh, and right here waiting for you to enjoy. 🍉 🍎 🍌 🍓

We hate to inform you, but your trivia nemesis is putting in reps on Ballotpedia. Are you? We take so much pride in the work we do to prepare voters for elections. But we are also incredibly proud of the information we have about American civics and history. We've put together some answers to commonly asked bar trivia because we want to be there to support you in the voting booth AND at your local dive bar! ❤️ 🍻

This year, we’re providing comprehensive information about every single election on the ballot to voters in 26 states. This is no easy task, and we want to thank the volunteers who work so hard to help make this local coverage robust and accurate. We want to give a huge thank you to Grace Fu, a Trusted Researcher who has helped expand our ultra-local election coverage. Grace is a high school junior from New Jersey, a political science junkie, and a NYT games aficionado. We are so thankful to Grace and all of our volunteers for the work they do to expand our coverage. Every single voter deserves access to timely, accurate, and nonpartisan voter information, and it is such a joy to share this mission with such bright and bold volunteers. If you’d like to volunteer with us, the Summer 2025 program runs from July 14 through September 12. The program is fully remote and asynchronous, allowing you to contribute 5–10 hours per week on own your schedule—perfect for balancing summer school, work, or other commitments. If you have any questions about the application process or the program, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

We are celebrating Ballotpedia’s 18th birthday today, on a Friday no less! To get rather meta, Ballotpedia would be able to use Ballotpedia to vote! As with any milestone, we’re feeling nostalgic, and we’d like to reflect on how far we’ve come... What we know as Ballotpedia started as a search for answers. Our founder, Leslie Graves,  was searching for information about local elections in her community and quickly discovered how hard it was to find it. With encouragement from family and friends, she started a group whose goal was to help ordinary citizens understand how to use transparency laws and online portals to find out how to connect with their government. We started growing bigger, branching out into coverage of state and local ballot measures, recall elections, and the federal and state court systems. Now, in our 18th year, we’re providing comprehensive coverage of every election in 26 states. That’s in addition to our regular coverage of elections in all 50 states and state capitals, the nation’s 100 largest cities, the 200 biggest school districts, and more. As Ballotpedia journeys into adulthood, we have big goals: to sustainably provide complete coverage of every election in the country by 2034. That’s nine years away; it’s a long journey ahead, and we can’t wait to get started. If you’ve ever used Ballotpedia, told a friend about us, or cited us in a school project, we hope you do a little something fun to celebrate a Ballotpedia birthday. We recommend a little sweet treat (Beep’s favorite). 

We are thrilled to announce On the Ballot's new host, Norm Leahy! 🎙️ Norm is a journalist, historian, and Edgar Allen Poe aficionado. He brings a deep understanding of American politics and a strong commitment to Ballotpedia’s mission: delivering neutral, fact-driven information to voters, journalists, and policymakers alike. Most elections in 2025 are local, so it's particularly essential to connect people to the politics around them, and we are confident that Norm will do just that... and we will have fun along the way! ✨ Catch Norm on On the Ballot wherever you get your podcasts.

Local elections are happening across the country nearly every single week of the year. Voters deserve access to robust, timely, and factual information about candidates, no matter how local the race, and that's where you come in! Ballotpedia is now accepting applications for the Summer 2025 Volunteer Fellows Program! As a Ballotpedia Fellow, you’ll work to expand our coverage of American politics, with a special focus on researching local officeholders and candidates for the 2025 elections. In the Spring alone, our Fellows researched over 20,000 candidates and contributed nearly 3,000 hours! The Summer 2025 program runs from July 14 through September 12. It’s fully remote and asynchronous, allowing you to contribute 5-10 hours per week on your own schedule, making it easy to balance with school, work, or other commitments. Please reach out if you have any questions about the application process or the program. We ADORE our Fellows and love to talk about them! https://lnkd.in/eU4xujC2

Happy Volunteer Appreciation Week! We want to take a moment to celebrate all of our volunteers and the many, many contributions they have made to Ballotpedia. Thanks to their dedication, over 20,000 local candidates have been researched in 2025 alone! In a year with so many local races, our volunteers' work is essential—helping ensure that voters across the country have access to reliable, nonpartisan information. To our volunteers: we are so grateful for your hard work and dedication. Your contributions make a huge difference for voters nationwide, and we couldn’t be prouder to have you as part of the Ballotpedia community. Thank you so much!