Methodology
Data & Methodology
All data on Poliscope comes from primary government sources. We do not scrape, crowdsource, or purchase data from third parties.
Data Sources
FEC
Federal Election Commission
Individual contributions, candidate and committee filings, independent expenditures, and party transactions.
Coverage: 2000–2024 election cycles
Source: FEC bulk data downloads
Congress.gov
Congressional Data
Bills, resolutions, sponsorship records, legislator profiles, committee assignments, and roll call votes.
Coverage: 108th–119th Congress
Source: Congress.gov API & GovInfo
USAspending
Federal Contract Awards
Federal contract awards across all agencies, including recipient organizations, award amounts, and contracting details.
Coverage: All historical
Source: U.S. Treasury
LDA
Lobbying Disclosure Act
Federal lobbying registrations and quarterly activity reports, including client spending, lobbying firms, and issue areas.
Coverage: 1999–2024
Source: Senate Office of Public Records
SEC EDGAR
Securities & Exchange Commission
Insider transactions (Form 4), beneficial ownership filings, and annual/quarterly reports with full-text search.
Coverage: Active filers
Source: SEC EDGAR
GLEIF
Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation
Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs), corporate ownership hierarchies, and parent-subsidiary relationships.
Coverage: 3.2M+ entities
Source: GLEIF public data
OGE 278e
Financial Disclosures
Executive branch financial disclosures including assets, positions, transactions, and liabilities for political appointees.
Coverage: Current appointees
Source: Office of Government Ethics
Gift & Travel
Congressional Gift & Travel Filings
Gifts, travel, and privately funded trips reported by members of Congress under House and Senate disclosure rules.
Coverage: Recent filings
Source: House Clerk & Senate
Processing Pipeline
Collection
Data is loaded directly from government bulk downloads and APIs. There are no intermediaries between the original government source and the Poliscope database.
Normalization
Records from different federal sources use different formats, identifiers, and naming conventions. We standardize these into a consistent structure so they can be searched and compared across sources.
Entity Resolution
The same person or organization often appears under different names across different government databases. We use multiple signals — including name similarity, geographic information, employer records, and filing identifiers — to link records that refer to the same real-world entity.
Data Freshness
Government sources publish data on their own schedules. We update Poliscope from these sources regularly, but there is always some lag between when a filing is made and when it appears on the platform.
| Source | Update cadence | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| FEC bulk files | Updated with each FEC release | Through 2024-12-31 |
| Congressional data | Updated from Congress.gov regularly | 108th–119th Congress |
| Federal contracts | Updated quarterly | All historical |
| Lobbying disclosures | Updated quarterly | 1999–present |
| SEC filings | Updated from EDGAR regularly | Active filers |
| GLEIF entity data | Updated periodically | 3.2M+ entities |
| Financial disclosures (OGE) | Updated as filings are published | Current appointees |
| Gifts & travel filings | Updated as filings are published | Recent filings |
Known Limitations
We believe acknowledging limitations openly is the strongest signal a transparency platform can send.
Entity resolution is probabilistic
Some entity matches may be incorrect, and some connections may be missed. Where we are uncertain, we err on the side of not linking rather than linking incorrectly.
Government data has inherent quality issues
FEC contribution records contain misspelled names, inconsistent employer entries, and address variations. We normalize what we can, but not every inconsistency can be resolved.
Coverage gaps exist
Some sources have more complete historical coverage than others. Earlier election cycles may have fewer records or less detailed filing information.
Reporting delays vary
The time between a financial transaction and its appearance in government records depends on each agency's reporting requirements. Recent activity may not yet be reflected.