Sources & Methodology

Which races are featured

election.do covers a small number of U.S. Senate and governor races on the November 3, 2026 ballot that are drawing national attention because they are competitive, open, or closely watched. Being featured says nothing about a race’s importance to the people who vote in it, and coverage is not a complete ballot guide: every state also elects members of the U.S. House, and most have state, local and ballot-measure contests. Each state page lists the statewide federal and governor contests on its ballot, using Ballotpedia: United States Senate elections, 2026, Ballotpedia: Gubernatorial elections, 2026 and U.S. Census Bureau: Congressional apportionment, 2020 Census, and links to the state’s official election office.

Who is compared

Each comparison features the two major-party nominees (in a top-two primary state, the two candidates who advanced). Every other candidate who qualified for the ballot is listed in the race’s “Who’s on the ballot” section, with the source used to check the list. Write-in candidates are not listed. Candidates are shown in alphabetical order by last name.

Where information comes from

Every factual statement about a candidate is tied to at least one source, shown next to it and listed in full at the bottom of the comparison. In order of preference:

• Official state election offices, for candidate lists, election dates and rules.
• Official legislative records (congress.gov, senate.gov, clerk.house.gov, state legislatures) for votes and bills. Roll-call votes in Congress link directly to the official record.
• Official biographies and government sources, for offices held and actions taken in office.
• The candidates’ own campaign websites, platform documents and questionnaire answers, for what they propose.
• Transcripts and recordings of debates, interviews and speeches, for what they have said.
• Established news organizations and reference works, for context and where primary records are not readily available.

How claims are labeled

Positions are labeled by what they rest on, so a promise is never presented as a record:

• Campaign proposal: what the candidate says they would do if elected.
• Public statement: what the candidate has said, with the date and setting.
• Past action: something the candidate did, such as a recorded vote, a bill they sponsored, an executive action or a lawsuit filed in an official capacity.
• Enacted policy: a law or policy that took effect under the candidate.

In the track record, items established by official records or independent reporting are marked Documented; an accomplishment that rests on the candidate’s own account is marked Candidate’s claim. When the record establishes a fact, we report it plainly rather than balancing it with an opposing claim.

Significant legal or ethics proceedings appear in the track record only when the candidate, their office or their campaign is the subject, defendant or respondent, and always with their current status or outcome. Cases in which a candidate is a witness or a victim are not listed. We look for such proceedings in the same way for both candidates.

Same standards for both candidates

Both candidates are evaluated with the same framework and standards of evidence: the same issues, the same kinds of sources, the same labels and the same checks. What a comparison can show depends on what can be verified, so the two sides are not always the same length. A candidate who has served in Congress has a roll-call record; a first-time candidate does not. A long-serving official has more documented actions than a newcomer. We don’t pad a thinner record or trim a fuller one to match.

Where information is unavailable or undocumented, we say so rather than speculate. If we can’t find a documented position on an issue, the page says No documented position found. We don’t infer positions from party affiliation, and we don’t describe a candidate’s views through an opponent’s characterization.

Voting records

For candidates who have served in a legislature, we show a selection of recorded roll-call votes on measures tied to the race’s issues, with the date, the question voted on and the candidate’s recorded vote. Sponsoring or cosponsoring a bill is not a vote, so it appears in the track record instead. For candidates who have never served in a legislative body, the page explains that a voting record does not apply.

Quotations

Quotations are short, verbatim, about policy, and dated, with where they were said and a link to the full context. We don’t splice separate remarks together or choose remarks to embarrass a candidate, and we aim for comparable topics across the two candidates.

How we check before publishing

Candidate information is written as structured data and published exactly as checked; nothing is generated when you load a page.

We use AI tools to help find, organize and check sources, and the checking is a separate pass from the research. Before a comparison is published, every claim is compared with the source it cites: the source has to exist and state what the claim says, quotations have to be verbatim, and the wording has to follow these rules. Recorded votes are checked against the official legislative record. Anything a source doesn’t support is corrected, narrowed or removed, and a source that can’t be read automatically is flagged for a person to check.

These checks are our own, not an outside fact-check. Each comparison shows the date it was last reviewed.

Photographs

Candidate photographs are used only when they are in the public domain (such as official portraits of members of Congress) or under a license that permits reuse, and they are credited on the page. A comparison shows photographs for both candidates or for neither; when a suitable photograph is not available for both, both appear as initials.

Independence and neutral presentation

election.do is not affiliated with any government agency, candidate, campaign or political party, and no candidate or campaign has paid for or reviewed its content. It does not rate, rank or recommend candidates, or predict who will win.

The site uses no party colors; featured states on the map share a single neutral accent. Language is plain and descriptive: what a bill does rather than what its supporters or opponents call it, and no characterizing adjectives about candidates except inside their own quotations.

Nonpartisanship is an editorial commitment these rules are meant to uphold, not a claim that any presentation is perfectly neutral. If you think a comparison falls short of it, please tell us.

Corrections

We correct errors as quickly as we can. If you see something that is wrong, outdated or missing, report it, with a source if you have one. Reports are checked against the record, and corrected pages carry a new review date.

Map data

State boundaries come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s cartographic boundary files, via the open-source us-atlas project. Alaska and Hawaii are shown as insets and are not to scale.