Trust Center

Every claim traceable. Every gap admitted.

Right for Office exists to present public records, not narratives. This page explains how data enters the platform, how it is scored and verified, what our labels mean, where coverage is still weak, and how to get an error fixed.

Where the data comes from

Civic records are ingested from official public sources: FEC/OpenFEC for campaign finance, Congress.gov for federal rosters, bills, and roll-call votes, OpenStates for state legislators and state votes, CourtListener for judicial records, official House/Senate office pages for public statements, state election authorities for deadlines, and Wikidata for select local offices. Every stored record carries its source where the source is known.

Full source directory

How scoring works

Issue scores are computed from persisted, source-linked records — primarily roll-call votes — using a published methodology with confidence ratings. Scores are never hand-assigned, never adjusted for narrative, and never generated by AI. If there is not enough underlying evidence, the score is absent rather than estimated.

Scoring methodology

Nonpartisan records, an explicit lens

The public records themselves — votes, bills, campaign finance, statements — are nonpartisan and shown as they are. Our issue briefs interpret that record through an explicit conservative policy lens, which we keep clearly separate from the record. Scores are earned only with source-linked evidence: a paid, claimed, or advertiser profile can never buy a better score or a higher ranking.

How the issue lens works

What "verified" means

Verification tiers (Bronze through Diamond) reflect specific completed checks: identity confirmation, ballot filing confirmation, questionnaire completion, document review, and interview. A profile without a tier is not suspicious — it simply has not completed those checks yet. Profile pages label those profiles as "Candidate Record", not "Verified".

Verification tiers

What "not yet sourced" means

When a profile shows "Source pending" or a Data Coverage panel lists missing dimensions, it means our ingestion has not yet stored records for that dimension — it is a statement about our coverage, not about the person. We show these gaps openly instead of filling them with estimates.

Live coverage and gaps

Data freshness

Every data source records its last successful sync. Sources that have not synced within their expected window are flagged as stale on our health checks, and stale coverage is reported rather than hidden. Sync status is monitored continuously and shown on the resources page.

Source sync status

AI-generated content

The AI research assistant answers only from stored, source-backed records, with low temperature and explicit instructions not to speculate. Its output is labeled as AI-generated, may still be incomplete or incorrect, and should be checked against official sources before relying on it. AI never writes scores, verification statuses, or civic records.

Known limitations

Coverage is uneven and expanding: county, city, and school-board offices have little or no free national data source and are largely absent; judicial coverage is a partial ongoing backfill; endorsement records are not yet ingested; some election deadlines lack a source link; and state/local campaign finance is not in OpenFEC. The coverage page quantifies these gaps state by state.

Gap intelligence

Corrections and challenges

Anyone can report an incorrect record, and candidates can claim their profile through a signed-in account to challenge or correct information. Correction reports enter a review queue with an audit trail; verified fixes update the record and its source. We would rather correct quickly than defend an error.

Submit a correction

Right for Office is live and expanding. Data coverage, verification workflows, and correction processes are actively improving, and this page will change as they do. Nothing on this platform is legal advice, and no content constitutes an endorsement of any candidate by Right for Office.