A card is useful only if a voter on either side would call it fair. These are the rules every card follows, and they are the same for every candidate.
Every candidate in a race receives the same 28 questions, sent the same day, with the same deadline. Cards use the same rows, the same vote list, the same money fields, and the same type size for everyone.
Positions are the candidate's own questionnaire answer, a recorded roll-call vote, or a direct quote from something they published or said on the record, each with a date and a link. If we found nothing, the cell says "No position found." We do not paraphrase a vague statement into a firm one, and we do not characterize anyone. Money is reported as filed. Attendance is a fraction.
For each legislative body, the list of votes on a card was fixed in advance and is the same for every member of that body. A vote qualifies if it was a recorded roll call, it maps to one of the position questions, and it was contested (roughly a fifth of the body on the other side, or a split within a party). Unanimous votes tell a voter almost nothing about an individual, so they are marked that way or left off. Picking votes after seeing someone's record is how partisan scorecards cheat; we don't.
If a candidate answers the questionnaire after a card is published, their answer replaces the researched cell within 48 hours and the card's date changes. Any candidate may submit a 100-word statement, printed unedited, or correct a factual error at any time. Every candidate sees their card 24 hours before it publishes.
Legislative votes link to the roll-call PDF on wvlegislature.gov or to the Senate and House clerks. State and county campaign finance comes from the West Virginia Secretary of State's reporting system and the Harrison County Clerk; federal from the FEC and OpenSecrets. Quotes link to the page they came from. Where a figure came from a secondary source and hasn't yet been checked against the primary, the card says "verify."
Informed Voters of America takes no contributions from candidates, parties, PACs, or their donors, and no one who works on a card may be employed by or volunteer for a campaign on that card.
It does not score, rank, grade, or recommend. The two numbers that look like scores, "answered 18 of 28" and "3 positions differ from a recorded vote," are counts anyone can reproduce. Which candidate best represents you is your judgment, and the card exists to make that judgment easier to form and harder to fake.
Found an error? Email Citizen@informedvotersofamerica.com with the card, the cell, and the source. Corrections are logged on the card.