Use the verified list, then open the document
A search portal, a spreadsheet, and a news roundup can help you find a record. The citation names the document. The way to find the government page, without inventing a portal from memory, is the official public-records compilation OppIntell publishes for every state hub. It was verified on 2026-10-16. Each linked page returned a successful fetch on that date. A category with no link is a category that pass did not confirm.
Open candidate research by state, choose the state, and read the Official public records section. The same compilation is collected on the methodology page. Download it as JSON or CSV. Agency names, public URLs, and the coverage notes in this compilation are dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. The underlying government websites and records remain the property of the agencies that publish them. Coverage notes quote the FEC Combined Federal/State Disclosure and Election Directory (revised July 2025) or the anchor text on a U.S. Department of Justice state court resources page, plus the HTTP result of the verification fetch.
The categories in that compilation are candidate filing and qualified-candidate lists, campaign finance disclosure, personal financial disclosure and ethics filings, lobbying registrations, statewide court records, official election results, and legislative bills and votes. Federal offices that apply in every state are listed at the end of the section. The opposition research page is the map of how those records sit in a candidate file. This page is how to open them.
Walk one category at a time
Candidate filing. The filing fixes the legal name, the office, and the cycle before any other record is attached. A ballot name and a committee name are often different strings. Write both when both appear. The FEC's state election offices page is one basis for the filing links in the compilation.
Campaign finance and personal disclosures. These are different forms. Finance is the committee's receipts and disbursements. A personal disclosure is the filer's income, assets, and liabilities. The reading pass for schedules is How to read a candidate's campaign finance filings. The federal catalog is the Federal Election Commission. The directory the compilation quotes is the FEC Combined Federal/State Disclosure and Election Directory, revised July 2025.
Legislative bills and votes. Use the links in that category for the state chamber. Congressional roll calls are a different shelf, covered in How to research a candidate's voting record. An election-results page can show that a person won a seat. It does not show how that person voted after taking the seat.
Lobbying registrations. A lobbying filing answers whether a registration names the person or the client. It does not answer how a legislator voted. Cite the registration that was opened, or leave the section empty.
When a category prints a gap note, the note means no live official page was confirmed for that category on the verification date. Checked pages that did not return a readable official page are not linked. Leave the section empty and record the search. A commercial directory is not a substitute for the missing official page.
Court records follow the person, not the surname
A docket, an opinion, or a judgment belongs in the file when it matches the person. Record the court, the case number, the date, and the latest public status that was opened. A dismissal, a seal, or a later appellate ruling is part of that status when the record you opened shows it. A caption that shares a surname and nothing else stays a lead. The lead can sit in notes. It does not become a sentence about the candidate until an address, a date of birth the record itself publishes, or another identifier in the filing lines up with the identity block.
Statewide court links, when the verification pass confirmed one, are the court records category on the state hub. The U.S. Department of Justice publishes a directory of state court resources at justice.gov/jmd/ls/state. That directory is a way to find a state court site. It is not itself a docket. Open the court site, then open the case.
Federal court records are a separate system. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts describes public court records at uscourts.gov/court-records. Case search uses PACER, the federal judiciary's electronic public access service, at pacer.uscourts.gov. A federal docket and a state docket can share a caption style and still be different cases. Cite the court that issued the record you opened.
Court records and campaign finance records answer different questions. A civil judgment is not a disbursement. A committee report is not a case caption. Keep the sentences on the documents that contain them.
How the file uses what you opened
On a published OppIntell briefing, each claim carries a source URL and a source type. Source types include an FEC filing, a secretary of state portal, a court record, an official campaign site, and a government press release. Citation validation records whether the cited document still exists at that URL and still contains the cited language. A claim that fails validation stays out of the public post.
A research book gives court records their own section, and the section cites a court record that matches the person. A case that names a different person stays out. The same rule is the court line on the opposition research book page. Profiles cover 24,000+ U.S. candidates. An empty court section means no matching record is in the file. It does not mean a search of every courthouse in the country was completed, and the file should not say that it was.
The short pass from a stack of records to a dossier a second person can open is how to turn public records into a usable candidate dossier. The record-type map is opposition research sources.
Related guides
- Voting record
- Campaign finance
- Public statements
- Sections of a research book
- What a campaign receives
- Firms and research software
- Sourcing rules for a claim
- Profiles kept in one database
- How models describe a candidate
- Certified nominee names
Questions researchers ask
Where is the list of official sources?
Each state hub has an Official public records section. The same compilation is on the methodology page and can be downloaded as JSON or CSV. Every external link in that section was fetched on the verification date printed there. A category with no link was not confirmed on that pass.
When does a court record belong in the file?
When the record matches the person, not only the surname. Write the court, the case number, the date, and the latest public status that was opened. A dismissal, a seal, or a later ruling is part of that status when it appears in the record. A caption that shares only a name stays a lead.
Where are federal court records?
The federal courts describe public records at https://www.uscourts.gov/court-records. Case search for the federal judiciary's electronic public access service is PACER, at https://pacer.uscourts.gov/. State court sites are a different system. The Justice Department's state court resources page is a directory of those sites, and the state hub links the ones the verification pass confirmed.
What if a category on the state hub has no link?
The hub prints a gap note. That note means no live official page was confirmed for that category on the verification date. Leave the section empty, or record the search, until a page is opened. Do not substitute a vendor directory or another state's portal.
Start from the public record
OppIntell builds source-cited candidate profiles from public records. If you want a file a second person can check, use the contact form on the opposition research page.