How to Check a Candidate's Voting Record Against Public Statements

A voting record and a public statement answer different questions. One says how the person voted on a bill or a board question, when that record exists. The other says which words were said, on a date, in a place. Checking one against the other means opening both documents and writing only what they support. The field manual is The Complete Guide to Evidence-Backed Opposition Research for Campaigns at /blog/the-complete-guide-to-evidence-backed-opposition-research-for-campaigns.

The memo check that sits in front of this comparison is /blog/how-to-verify-political-claims-before-they-reach-a-campaign-memo. The file those lines live in is /blog/how-to-build-a-citation-backed-candidate-research-dossier. Which offices even have a vote record is part of /blog/9-types-of-race-specific-research-campaign-teams-need. The container for the two columns is /blog/campaign-research-platform-vs-spreadsheets-which-workflow-holds-up.

Confirm the vote is this person and this question

Read the identity block before the roll call. Legal name, office, jurisdiction, cycle, and a disambiguator when another person shares the surname. The methodology page deduplicates on legal name, jurisdiction, office, and filing identifiers, with a reliability score when two sources disagree. A ballot name and a committee name are often different strings. Write the filing name next to a nickname before you look up the vote.

A vote line belongs when a legislative record exists for that person and that bill. The opposition-research page says a legislator's vote record exists only if they have served. A first-time candidate has a blank vote section. A U.S. House vote, a state-chamber vote, and a school board minute are different documents. A school board minute or a city council vote belongs only when the document names this person and this question. A shared surname on a vote list is not yet a claim. Name the chamber, the bill or question, and the date in the line you keep.

Store the statement as the words that were said

A quote stores the words that were said, with the date and the place. A newspaper summary, a staff recollection, and a clipped caption are descriptions by someone else. Label them that way. A memo that presents a paraphrase as the candidate's sentence has skipped the check, even when the article URL still loads. If the draft uses a nickname, write the filing name beside it before you compare the sentence to a vote.

An official campaign site and a government press release are named source types on the opposition-research page, beside an FEC filing, a Secretary of State portal, and a court record. A statement on the campaign site can be the words you store. A later page that rewrites those words is a different document. Note which URL you opened and the date you read it. The methodology page says candidate research records refresh daily. A quote copied from memory will not show that the page changed.

Put the two documents side by side

Write the vote in one line: the bill or question, the date, the recorded position, and the source URL. Write the statement in the next line: the words, the date, the place, and the source URL. The comparison sentence may say that both documents exist. It may quote the words and cite the vote. It stops where the documents stop. A sentence about motive, a private promise, or why the person voted needs its own public source.

The methodology page says a briefing states a fact directly when the public record supports it, and uses posture language, may, could, would examine, and appears consistent with, when the record only opens a question. A donor line can sit beside a vote in the same file. The gift documents a reported transaction. It does not explain the vote. Keep that boundary when the comparison is tempting to extend. An unsourced social post can start the question. It stays out of the comparison until a public record answers it.

Treat a contradiction flag as a prompt to read both

The homepage describes contradiction flags on the same profile fields as votes, quotes, and filings, each linked to a public record. The opposition-research page says a flag marks a statement and another public record that sit in tension. Open both. If the memo needs both, cite both. If only one document is in hand, the sentence stays a question. The flag is not, by itself, a finding about motive.

Citation validation still applies to each line. The methodology page says citation_validation_status tracks whether the cited document still exists at the cited URL and still contains the cited language. A vote citation that points at the wrong bill, or a quote citation that points at a paraphrase, fails that check. Pull the sentence until the source is re-resolved. Blog briefings regenerate hourly. When a cited source disappears, the public post is held back until the source is replaced. A campaign memo is not that automated gate. The people named on the homepage review step still read it: analyst, senior, legal, and communications.

Keep the vote and the statement in separate lines even when they support the same memo sentence. Two dates have to stay visible. The vote has the date of the roll call. The statement has the date the words were said. A sentence that hides either date makes a later reader guess which document came first. Write both dates in the comparison line. If a later amendment or a later speech replaces one of them, cite the later document and say which one it replaced.

Then run the same pair of documents on your own candidate. The opposition-research page calls that the mirror file. The page says the description is legal advice for no one. The nine race cards, including which offices have a vote record at all, stay at /blog/9-types-of-race-specific-research-campaign-teams-need. This check does not add those cards together.