Data sources

Some contests are covered in depth and some barely at all. A presidential race attracts far more published material than a state constituency, official candidate lists arrive at different times for different offices, and some seats are genuinely undocumented in public sources at the moment you read this.

So no claim is made that every record here has the same depth of sourcing. Each record shows its own source coverage, and a record with thin coverage says so rather than borrowing confidence from the records around it. An empty seat means we have not established who is standing, not that nobody is.

Published notices and lists from the electoral commission, government gazettes, and official records of who holds an office.

Can establish: Confirmed candidacy, the official candidate list for a contest, and who currently holds an office.

Cannot establish: Intentions. An official list for one election says nothing about who will stand in the next one.

Primary results, nomination announcements, substitution notices and formal statements issued by a party.

Can establish: That a party has nominated or endorsed someone, and the date it did so.

Cannot establish: Official candidacy, which requires the electoral commission, and nothing about a rival faction's competing claim during a leadership dispute.

Established news organisations reporting on declarations, primaries, withdrawals and disputes.

Can establish: That something was reported, by whom and when. Multiple independent outlets agreeing raises confidence.

Cannot establish: A formal status on its own. A report that someone is expected to run is recorded as reported, never as declared.

Manifestos, campaign sites, and statements issued by a candidate or their campaign.

Can establish: What the candidate says about themselves, which is genuinely useful and is labelled as such.

Cannot establish: Independent verification of any claim it contains. Candidate-supplied information is never presented as independently verified.

States, local government areas, wards, constituencies, seats and polling units, drawn from authoritative published sources.

Can establish: The structure of the contest: which seats exist, and which places fall inside them.

Cannot establish: Anything about people. Reference data describes the map, not the candidates on it.

A source attached to a record carries who published it, its title, a link where one exists, and its publication date. Dates matter more here than in most subjects: party affiliation, candidacy and officeholding all change, and a source is only evidence for the period it actually describes.

Where a source is quoted second hand we say so rather than implying we read the original. Encyclopaedia entries are used to find stronger sources, never cited as one.

Read the methodology for how sources feed into published assessments, or how moderation works for how they are reviewed.