Ask BackerBase: privacy and verification

Ask BackerBase answers supported questions across campaign-finance, candidate, filing, business, nonprofit, property, relationship, election, and legislative-district records available in BackerBase. It is a research assistant, not an official source or an open-web search engine.

Treat every answer as a research lead until you inspect the cited records, covered period, and stated limitations.

Ask a useful question

Open Ask BackerBase (/ask). Include enough scope to distinguish the subject and calculation:

the person, candidate, committee, organization, property, race, or district;
the time period, election cycle, filing period, or tax year;
the geography or jurisdiction;
the activity or relationship you want to examine; and
the comparison, ranking, total, list, or path you need.

Examples:

What did this contributor give to Louisiana candidates from 2023 through 2025?
Which contributors in BackerBase gave to both Candidate A and Candidate B during the selected cycle?
Which committees reported payments to this vendor, and what records support the totals?
Which Louisiana SOS businesses list this person in a source record?
Show recent nonprofit filings connected to this official and state the matching limitations.
What evidence supports a connection between these two entities?

If multiple records could match a name, choose from the clarification options or add an identifier, office, location, organization, or other distinguishing detail. Ask should not silently choose an ambiguous identity.

Continue a conversation

Ask a follow-up when the existing subject and scope should carry forward.
Select Edit and ask again to revise a prior question.
Select Retry when a request failed or you want the system to run it again.
Use the cancel control to stop a question that is still running.
Open History to return to recent conversations associated with your account.
Select New chat when the next question should not depend on the current conversation.

Read an answer

Citations

Numbered citations identify supporting BackerBase or public-source records. Select a citation marker to preview its source, then open the source record when a link is available.

A citation supports the nearby statement; it does not automatically establish every conclusion in the answer. When a record link is unavailable, use the displayed source and identifier to locate the originating record directly.

Sources and coverage

Expand Sources and coverage below an answer to review:

the source families used;
covered dates or snapshot dates;
record or result counts when available;
supporting records;
analytics query context when shown; and
limitations attached to the result.

A partial, unknown, or unavailable coverage state limits the conclusion. Missing records are not evidence of zero activity.

Clarifications and limitations

Ask may request an identity, source, date range, or other missing scope. Answer the clarification rather than choosing the most familiar name. Read limitation text as part of the answer, especially when it concerns incomplete coverage, exact-name matching, bounded results, or source differences.

Verify an important answer

Before quoting, publishing, or using an answer for a consequential decision:

Confirm that Ask used the intended entity and did not combine different people or organizations.
Confirm the source family, jurisdiction, and covered period.
Open each citation that supports the key claim.
Compare totals with the supporting rows and note whether the result is bounded or partial.
Check amendment, refund, adjustment, and identity-resolution context when relevant.
Confirm derived relationships against the evidence description.
Compare the final claim with the originating agency filing, report, PDF, or source system.

Do not infer ownership, control, coordination, influence, residence, wrongdoing, or a direct relationship from a role, shared address, graph path, or possible name match unless the underlying records establish it.

Privacy and data use

BackerBase stores Ask conversation text so the signed-in user can reopen conversation history. Separate first-party usage events may record limited metadata such as question length and a short hash rather than copying the full question into usage analytics.

Depending on the environment configuration, an AI provider may process:

the full question;
instructions describing the supported research task;
structured query details;
source and coverage metadata; and
a limited set of retrieved records, calculations, or summaries used to prepare the answer.

Configured analytics or research services may also process the question and matched entity context when the requested analysis requires them. BackerBase does not use Ask to search the open web.

Do not enter:

private campaign strategy;
embargoed reporting notes;
confidential source information;
passwords, invitation links, reset links, authentication values, or API keys;
protected personal data; or
sensitive information that is unnecessary for the public-record question.

Conversation history is associated with the signed-in account. Feedback about an answer is stored for product review. Do not put confidential material in answer feedback.

Give useful feedback

Select Helpful or Not helpful below an answer. Use the application’s Feedback control when more context is needed.

Include:

the question you asked;
the record or calculation you expected;
the unsupported, missing, or confusing part of the answer;
the relevant name, identifier, date range, or report number; and
a source link that disagrees with or improves the answer when available.

Do not include confidential strategy, source identities, credentials, or access links.