Data sources and coverage

BackerBase combines records from several public sources. Coverage varies by source family, jurisdiction, time period, record type, and refresh state. A record being absent from BackerBase does not establish that the record or activity does not exist.

Use Data status and methodology (/data-status) for the current source periods, last-check information, availability states, and known gaps. This guide explains how to interpret that status without repeating counts that can change.

Source families

Source family	Examples of supported research	Important boundary
Louisiana Ethics campaign finance	Contributions, candidate-controlled expenditures, loans, filing summaries, and report links where available	Transaction records and summary facts can represent overlapping views of the same source activity.
Federal Election Commission	Federal candidates, committees, filings, cycle summaries, receipts, and disbursements available in BackerBase	Coverage is not a complete national FEC universe, and completeness differs by record family.
Louisiana legislative records	Legislators, bills, sponsorships, actions, roll-call votes, and member votes	Some legislative identities may remain unresolved across sources.
Louisiana Secretary of State corporate records	Business registrations, charter numbers, and source-listed people or roles	A listed role does not by itself prove beneficial ownership or control.
Louisiana parish assessors	Owner-name and property observations for supported parishes and providers	Coverage and publication schedules differ by parish; an observation does not always establish current ownership.
IRS and nonprofit filing sources	Nonprofit profiles, Form 990 or 990-N details, officers, compensation, grants, related parties, and source documents where available	Not every filing, schedule, field, or historical year is available or fully traced.
Louisiana election and qualifying records	Contests, candidates, results, turnout, qualified-voter context, and qualifying history available in BackerBase	Event and geography coverage varies; election context is separate from campaign-finance activity unless records provide a connection.
Aggregate voter-registration reports	Registration totals and trends by supported geography and date	BackerBase does not expose person-level voter names, addresses, voter IDs, phone numbers, emails, or person-level party records.
BackerBase relationships and connections	Source-reported money flows, organization roles, and reviewed or labeled connections	A path, shared address, role, or possible name match does not establish influence, residence, ownership, coordination, or wrongdoing.

Understand coverage states

Coverage uses separate ideas that should not be collapsed into one claim.

Freshness

Freshness describes how recently BackerBase checked or updated a source relative to that source’s expected publication schedule.

Current means the source is within the defined freshness expectation.
Within publication lag means the source may be up to date even though the publisher normally releases data after a delay.
Delayed or stale means the latest checked data is older than expected.
No new source records means a check completed without finding later source material; it is not automatically an error.
Source unavailable or import failed means the latest attempt could not establish updated coverage.
Unknown means the application cannot make a reliable freshness claim from the recorded metadata.

Completeness

Completeness describes whether the records available in BackerBase reconcile with the intended source universe. Recent data can still be partial, and older data can be complete for a defined period.

Partial means a known portion of the source, period, geography, or record family is available.
Missing records or backfill pending means known source material has not been fully added.
Reconciliation failed means the available and expected source coverage did not agree under the current check.
Unknown means completeness has not been established.

Source availability

A temporary source failure can make search or a feature partial even when previously available records remain accessible. Read the notice attached to the current result rather than assuming the whole product has the same status.

Read dates correctly

Different dates answer different questions:

Record date describes the transaction, filing, election, tax year, assessment, or other source event.
Coverage period describes the range included in a result or dataset.
As-of date describes a snapshot.
Last checked describes when BackerBase evaluated the source or status.
Last successful update describes the latest recorded successful import when that history is available.

Do not substitute an import date for the date of a relationship or transaction. Do not describe a dataset as current through a suspicious future date; treat that as a data-quality issue until verified.

Understand counts and totals

Describe a number as records in BackerBase unless the interface explicitly says that it counts unique people, organizations, transactions, filings, or another defined unit.
Do not add totals from overlapping source lanes or record models unless the interface explicitly defines them as additive.
Federal and Louisiana campaign-finance figures can represent different sources, scopes, or aggregation methods.
Amendments, refunds, adjustments, memo entries, name variations, and duplicate source rows can affect totals.
A missing value is unavailable, not zero.

Understand identity and relationship limits

Names are not stable identifiers. The same person or organization can appear under multiple spellings, and different people can share a name.

BackerBase may label a relationship as source-listed, accepted, reviewed, derived, unresolved, or a possible name match. Read that label with the supporting evidence:

Source-listed means the source record reported the name or role; it does not establish that BackerBase accepted the identity beyond the source.
Accepted or reviewed means the application has a stronger identity or relationship decision under its review rules.
Possible name match means the connection depends on name similarity or an explicitly described matching rule and must not be treated as confirmed.
Derived means BackerBase calculated, grouped, or connected facts from available source records; inspect the method and supporting rows.

Verify a finding

Use this checklist before relying on an important claim:

Identity: Confirm names, identifiers, office, organization, location, and other disambiguating details.
Source: Identify the agency, filing family, or record collection supporting the claim.
Scope: Confirm jurisdiction, period, election cycle, tax year, geography, and active filters.
Status: Check for partial coverage, missing providers, unresolved identity, amendment state, or possible matching.
Evidence: Open the supporting row, filing, report number, PDF, source document, or agency link when available.
Reconciliation: For publication or a consequential decision, compare the claim with the originating public source.

If a source link is unavailable, record the available identifier and search the originating agency directly. Do not treat a BackerBase summary without inspectable support as final proof.

Report a data issue

Use Feedback in the application. Include the product route, record identifier, source link, expected value, observed value, and relevant period. Do not include passwords, private strategy, confidential source details, or sensitive personal information.