Introducing The Pathfinder – A New Monthly Column
If you’ve looked online for a sample ballot or searched for unbiased information about a candidate, ballot measure, or policy initiative, you’ve almost certainly come across Ballotpedia, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit whose mission is to provide its millions of readers with political news and information that’s “relevant, reliable, and available for all.” You may have even come across their Sample Ballot Lookup Tool while perusing this website.
We interviewed Ballotpedia’s founder and CEO Leslie Graves to find out more about their work, the expertise they bring as partners to Preserving Democracy, and to get a sense of what readers can look forward to in Graves’ new monthly column, The Pathfinder, starting on Preserving Democracy later this month.
Preserving Democracy: I’d love to hear some background on how and why you founded Ballotpedia. How did the organization come to life?
Leslie Graves: Really – in 2006 at my kitchen table. I know it sounds cliche, but I was trying to find an unbiased source of information on ballot measures for an upcoming election. I was struck by two things: The general lack of available information in easy-to-understand language and if any information on those initiatives existed at all, it was almost always partisan.
Ultimately, I made it my mission to provide information voters could trust, with verifiable facts, and absolutely no spin. It was an immediate hit with readers, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Preserving Democracy: And why the name Ballotpedia – where does the name come from? Can anyone make edits, like Wikipedia? Is there any relation?
Leslie Graves: I love Wikipedia, but we’re not related. In our earliest days, our content was created by volunteers researching and writing about a handful of ballot measures – hence the “ballot” in our name. The “pedia” comes from our position as “the encyclopedia of American politics.” We now have a professional staff of researchers and writers who produce all of our content. We’re not crowdsourced, so people cannot directly edit our content. We do edit our content after it has been published if a reader flags something of concern. Our staff also edits our content as we continually update articles about elections and candidates as they move through an electoral lifecycle from the filing deadline through to the election results.
Preserving Democracy: You mentioned bipartisan and ‘no-spin’ when speaking about Ballotpedia’s mission. What processes and safeguards does your team employ to make sure that’s the case for all the information you provide?
Leslie Graves: We are deeply, culturally committed to neutrality, so when you join Ballotpedia, you sign up for that. It starts with our interview process, and commitment to our mission is a key component of every interview. Organizationally we are not affiliated with any political campaign or advocacy group. Employees leave their politics at home, and we don’t know where they are on the political or ideological spectrum. In terms of our content, we have audits, systems, documentation, and metrics in place to guide content development and to ensure we’re providing objective and factual information – and monitoring our accuracy.
Preserving Democracy: How would you describe Ballotpedia today?
Leslie Graves: What started as a seed of an idea has grown into Ballotpedia becoming the go-to source of credible, neutral political information for millions of voters, educators, researchers, and reporters. In 2020, one out of every four American voters visited Ballotpedia for information about the elections in their area. Our ambitions for 2024 are even bigger, with the goal of covering most, if not all of the 500,000+ elections occurring across the country.
Preserving Democracy: What does covering half a million elections of various sizes entail for your team?
Leslie Graves: We refer internally to this challenge as our ‘one big thing.’ That is, solving the ballot information problem. Every individual and team in our organization has a clear view of how their job helps solve that problem. Whether your job is to write newsletters, research policy, promote our Candidate Connection survey, or improve our Sample Ballot offerings – your work at Ballotpedia is in service of helping us get information out to voters.
Preserving Demcracy: Do you have a ‘white whale’ that you’ve been pursuing, or would like to tackle?
Leslie Graves: I love that! Maybe in 2024, we’ll start referring to our “one big thing” as our ‘white whale’ or ‘project Moby Dick.’ In all seriousness, the biggest challenge we’re pursuing is the ballot information problem.
Our work to close the ballot information gap won’t be complete until every voter in the United States can easily find the list of candidates for all of their elections, along with meaningful information about all of those candidates. How the future looks to us: voters who are engaged, enthusiastic, and equipped to make a difference. That’s how we help preserve democracy.
Preserving Democracy: How do you define ‘ballot information problem’?
Leslie Graves: Each election tens of millions of eligible voters stay home. People want to participate, but they often lack the time, tools, and confidence to make informed political decisions. Few voters know who is on their ballot – especially ultra-local down-ballot candidates – and they don’t have an easy way to find out.
Preserving Democracy: Is what you’re doing working?
Leslie Graves: We know meaningful coverage of local elections reengages voters, and from the strong numbers we have – 263 million pageviews, 7 million people used our Sample Ballot last year, and we have 3 million lifetime newsletter subscribers – it’s definitely working.
Those numbers are great, but I love hearing directly from voters. We covered the school board race in Atlanta, and before the election, an Atlanta mother of two reached out to thank us. She wanted changes in the district, but she didn’t know how to make it happen. She knew she could vote in the school board races and that those board members could create change, but the candidates and what they stood for had always been a mystery. She said our coverage empowered her to make her best choice for her son’s future.
Preserving Democracy: Why ‘The Pathfinder’? What do you hope people gain from this column?
Leslie Graves: Fans of Andy Weir’s 2011 novel “The Martian” will understand the significance of “Pathfinder” as a name for this column. In the story, finding, rebooting, and using the Mars Pathfinder probe was crucial to the protagonist restoring communication with Earth. While my column won’t be searching for extraterrestrial life, it will be taking readers on a mission of discovery into our nation’s civic life. Together, we will explore how our democracy works, the challenges it faces, and the ways some propose to improve it.