Electepedia core schema

Shared data model for Electepedia and its sub-projects (e.g. Rhetornet). Covers the people and organizations in the political ecosystem (officeholders, candidates, staff, journalists, commentators), their dated roles, what they said, how claims were reviewed, how legislators voted, and money flows, with provenance on every factual record. Classes and slots are mapped to Popolo (people, organizations, memberships, posts, votes), schema.org (claims, fact-checks, creative works), SKOS (topics) and W3C PROV-O / PAV (provenance) so the data can be exchanged as JSON-LD without adopting this codebase.

URI: https://electepedia.com/schema/electepedia

Name: electepedia

Classes

Class	Description
Agent	Something that can speak, act, publish, send or receive money.
Bill	A piece of legislation. name is its title.
Claim	A checkable proposition in canonical wording, independent of who said it. Multiple Statements can make the same Claim.
ClaimReview	A fact-check of a Claim, either imported from a third-party fact-checker (as published in their schema.org ClaimReview markup) or produced by Electepedia contributors.
Count	The number of votes for one option in a VoteEvent.
Dataset	A bundle of Electepedia records, e.g. one import batch or an example file.
Event	Something that happened at a time: a debate, hearing, interview, broadcast segment, press conference. Rhetornet extends this for debates.
ExternalIdentifier	An identifier in an external registry (Popolo Identifier).
FinancialTransaction	Money moving between two agents: a contribution to a campaign committee, an independent expenditure, a speaking fee, a lobbying payment. Either side can be a Person or an Organization.
HasProvenance	Every factual record says where it came from and who recorded it.
Membership	A dated role linking a Person to an Organization, optionally in a Post. This is how every role is represented: office, candidacy, staff job, newsroom job, recurring commentator slot, party office, lobbying client.
Motion	A formal proposal put to a vote (passage, amendment, cloture…).
NamedThing	Base for records that have a display name and may carry external identifiers.
OnlineAccount	A public account the agent operates (official website, social media).
Organization	Any organization: legislature, chamber, committee, party, agency, campaign, PAC, news outlet, think tank, etc.
Person	A human in the political ecosystem. One record per human regardless of role: a staffer who becomes a commentator and then a candidate is still one Person with three Memberships. Personal contact details, birth dates and home locations are deliberately not modeled.
Post	A position that exists independently of who holds it, e.g. “U.S. Senator for Ohio (Class 1)” or “Anchor, Evening News”. Optional: many Memberships (staff, contributors) have no formal Post.
Rating	The reviewer’s verdict on their own scale, plus Electepedia’s mapping onto a common scale so verdicts from different checkers can be compared.
Source	A document, recording, dataset or post that evidences other records. Prefer primary sources (official records, full recordings, original posts) over coverage of them.
Statement	Something a specific person actually said or wrote, on a specific occasion. The checkable proposition(s) inside it are modeled as Claims, so the same claim can be traced across many speakers and outlets.
Topic	A subject area, arranged in a hierarchy.
Vote	How one person voted in one VoteEvent.
VoteEvent	A single vote held on a Motion, with its tallies.

Slots

Slot	Description
additional_name	Middle name(s) or initials.
alternate_name	The verdict as published, e.g. “Mostly False”, “Four Pinocchios”.
alternate_names	Other names the person is known by in sources: nicknames, former names, transliterations.
amount	Amount in currency, as reported.
appearances	Statements that make this claim.
archived_at	Archived copy (e.g. Wayback Machine) in case the original changes or disappears.
author	The fact-checking organization or person.
authors	People or organizations credited as authors.
best_rating	Value of the most-true verdict on the reviewer’s scale.
bill	The bill the motion concerns, if any.
bills	Bill records in this bundle.
broader	The parent topic, e.g. “Medicare” is narrower than “Health care”.
claim_reviewed	The claim as worded by the reviewer.
claim_reviews	ClaimReview records in this bundle.
claims	Claim records in this bundle.
classification	What kind of organization this is.
content_hash	SHA-256 (hex) of the captured content, for tamper evidence.
counts	Tallies per vote option, as officially reported.
coverage_tier	Why this person meets Electepedia’s inclusion threshold. People who fit no tier should not be recorded.
currency	ISO 4217 code.
date_made	When it was said or first published.
date_published	When the source was published.
date_submitted	When the motion was made.
description	Free-text summary of the record.
dissolution_date	When the organization ceased to exist. Absent means still active.
district	Open Civic Data division ID of the seat’s district, if any.
end_date	Absent means ongoing.
event	The event where it was said, if any.
event_type	What kind of event this is.
events	Event records in this bundle.
family_name	Last name or surname.
financial_transactions	FinancialTransaction records in this bundle.
first_appearance	Earliest known statement making this claim.
founding_date	When the organization was founded or first convened.
given_name	First name, as used publicly.
handle	Account name on the platform, e.g. “@example”, if it has one.
id	Stable Electepedia identifier, e.g. elp:person/jane-example. External identifiers (Bioguide, FEC, Wikidata…) go in identifiers.
identifiers	Identifiers for this entity in external registries.
in_capacity_of	The role the speaker held when they said this (e.g. their Senate seat, their slot as a network host, their job as campaign spokesperson). Lets analyses separate what someone said as an official from what they said as a commentator.
is_primary	True if this is the original record rather than a report about it.
item_reviewed	The Claim being fact-checked.
jurisdiction	Open Civic Data division ID, e.g. ocd-division/country:us/state:oh.
label	Name of the position, e.g. “U.S. Senator for Ohio (Class 1)”.
legislation_identifier	e.g. “H.R. 1234”.
legislative_session	e.g. “119th Congress” or “2025 Regular Session”.
legislature	The legislature or chamber where the bill was introduced.
location	Where it took place, as free text, e.g. “Cleveland, OH” or “Senate floor”.
media_end_seconds	Offset into the source recording where the statement ends.
media_start_seconds	Offset into the source recording where the statement starts.
member	The person holding the role.
memberships	Membership records in this bundle.
motion	The motion voted on.
motions	Motion records in this bundle.
name	Primary display name.
normalized_rating	The verdict mapped onto Electepedia’s common scale.
online_accounts	Official websites and public social media accounts.
option	Popolo encodes this as the Count’s rdf:type (opengov:YesCount etc.).
organization	The organization the record belongs to or takes place in.
organizations	Organization records in this bundle.
organizers	Who held or hosted the event, e.g. a broadcaster, committee or campaign.
parent_organization	The organization this one is part of, e.g. a committee’s chamber or a program’s network.
participants	People who spoke or took part, e.g. debaters, witnesses, panelists, hosts.
people	Person records in this bundle.
platform	e.g. “website”, “x”, “bluesky”, “youtube”, “substack”.
post	The formal position held, if the role has one.
posts	Post records in this bundle.
publisher	Organization that published the source, e.g. a news outlet or government body.
quote_type	How faithful text is to the original wording.
rating_value	Numeric verdict on the reviewer’s own scale, if they publish one.
recipient	Who received the money (for expenditures, the payee).
record_status	Whether this record accurately reflects its sources (e.g. the person really said this, the vote really happened this way). This is NOT a judgement on whether a claim is true; that is what ClaimReview is for.
recorded_at	When the record was created in Electepedia, not when the underlying event happened.
recorded_by	Contributor account or automated pipeline that created this record (e.g. “user:alice”, “pipeline:congress-votes@v1”).
result	Whether the motion passed.
retrieved_on	When Electepedia fetched or captured this source.
review_body	Summary of the reviewer’s reasoning.
review_rating	The reviewer’s verdict.
role_category	Normalized kind of role, for filtering across organizations.
role_title	Title as used by the organization, e.g. “Press Secretary”.
scheme	The registry the identifier belongs to.
sender	Who the money came from.
source_type	What kind of material this is.
sources	The source records this record was derived from.
speaker	The person who said or wrote it.
sponsors	Legislators who sponsored or cosponsored the bill.
start_date	Date the role, position, event or period began.
start_time	Precise start, when known; start_date is always set.
statement_type	What kind of utterance this is. Only claims are fact-checked.
statements	Statement records in this bundle.
text	Verbatim where possible; see quote_type.
topics	Subject areas the record is about.
transaction_date	When the money changed hands, or the date given in the filing.
transaction_type	What kind of payment this is.
url	Canonical web page for the record, e.g. an official site or the published fact- check.
value	The identifier exactly as the registry writes it, e.g. “S000148”.
vote_event	The vote this was cast in.
vote_events	VoteEvent records in this bundle.
voter	The legislator who voted.
votes	Vote records in this bundle.
worst_rating	Value of the least-true verdict on the reviewer’s scale.

Enumerations

Enumeration	Description
CoverageTierEnum	Inclusion tiers. Anyone outside these is out of scope.
EventTypeEnum	Kinds of event.
IdentifierSchemeEnum	External registries whose identifiers Electepedia stores.
MotionTypeEnum	Kinds of motion.
NormalizedRatingEnum	Common scale that every reviewer’s verdict is mapped onto.
OrganizationTypeEnum	Kinds of organization.
QuoteTypeEnum	How close a Statement’s text is to the speaker’s own words, strongest evidence first.
RecordStatusEnum	Whether a record has been checked against its sources.
RoleCategoryEnum	Normalized kinds of role, independent of each organization’s own job titles.
SourceTypeEnum	Kinds of evidence a Source can be.
StatementTypeEnum	Kinds of utterance.
TransactionTypeEnum	Kinds of payment.
VoteOptionEnum	How a legislator can be recorded in a vote.
VoteResultEnum	Outcome of a vote.

Types

Type	Description
Boolean	A binary (true or false) value
Curie	a compact URI
Date	a date (year, month and day) in an idealized calendar
DateOrDatetime	Either a date or a datetime
Datetime	The combination of a date and time
Decimal	A real number with arbitrary precision that conforms to the xsd:decimal specification
Double	A real number that conforms to the xsd:double specification
Float	A real number that conforms to the xsd:float specification
Integer	An integer
Jsonpath	A string encoding a JSON Path. The value of the string MUST conform to JSON Point syntax and SHOULD dereference to zero or more valid objects within the current instance document when encoded in tree form.
Jsonpointer	A string encoding a JSON Pointer. The value of the string MUST conform to JSON Point syntax and SHOULD dereference to a valid object within the current instance document when encoded in tree form.
Ncname	Prefix part of CURIE
Nodeidentifier	A URI, CURIE or BNODE that represents a node in a model.
Objectidentifier	A URI or CURIE that represents an object in the model.
Sparqlpath	A string encoding a SPARQL Property Path. The value of the string MUST conform to SPARQL syntax and SHOULD dereference to zero or more valid objects within the current instance document when encoded as RDF.
String	A character string
Time	A time object represents a (local) time of day, independent of any particular day
Uri	a complete URI
Uriorcurie	a URI or a CURIE

Subsets

Subset	Description