How the file is assembled
Methodology
Know Your Official is a records viewer, not an opinion site. These are the rules every profile is built under.
- 01
We publish official filings, and only official filings
Every fact on this site is drawn from a document a government body received or produced. If a claim is not in an official filing, it does not appear here — no matter how widely it is repeated.
- 02
Primary sources only
Every figure comes from primary government sources: openFEC, Congress.gov, House and Senate clerk and ethics disclosure sites; each of the 16 live state packs’ legislature, statewide-office, election, ethics and campaign-finance sites; county and city official sites and budgets; Florida DOE and EDR for Florida items; and the Census Bureau for boundaries. Link-only directories from EAC, USAGov, the FEC, Bioguide, the House Clerk and GovInfo are listed on Sources but are not used for facts. The full list is on the Sources page. No editorials, no advocacy scorecards, no campaign material, no social media. Party shown only when the official directory prints it.
- 03
Geographic pages list offices, not people
Florida is the template state. Geographic pages list offices first, including empty office rows, and local names come only from that office's official page. When an office site does not print the sitting officeholder's name, a statewide official directory — the Florida Division of Elections list of Supervisors of Elections, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement sheriffs directory, or the Florida Department of Education superintendents directory — may be used in its place, and it is linked as the source. A blocked or unnamed official page leaves the office row empty.
- 04
Live state packs
Florida pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Florida also has named sheriffs/SOEs + five cities. New York pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Georgia pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Texas pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. North Carolina pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Pennsylvania pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Ohio pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Michigan pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Virginia pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Arizona pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Illinois pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Wisconsin pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Minnesota pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Colorado pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. Nevada pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells. New Jersey pack is legislature + executives + portals + empty county shells.
- 05
Pay is statutory, and only where printed
Sitting U.S. House and Senate members show the statutory annual salary of $174,000 as printed by CRS RL30064 on Congress.gov and the Senate's Salaries Since 1789 table (as of 2026-09-26); no allowances or total compensation. Sitting Florida sheriffs, clerks, supervisors of elections, property appraisers, tax collectors and elected school superintendents show the Ch. 145 figure printed in the EDR FY 2025-26 report (finsal25.pdf, as of 2026-09-26), with the charter-county and Duval caveats. City pay for Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Orlando and Tallahassee is “Not found in official filings”, naming the budget pages searched. House office spending links to the Statement of Disbursements and is not itemized here.
- 06
Every line cites its filing
Each figure on a profile carries three things: the value, the as-of date, and a link to the original document at the official repository. If you cannot click through to the source, it does not appear on the page.
- 07
Absence is stated, not hidden
When the official record has no answer for a field, the profile says “Not found in official filings” and shows exactly which sources were searched. “Not found” always names what was searched and links the official page. A missing disclosure is a fact about the record, not a gap we paper over.
- 08
Personal-finance reports are linked, not parsed
In this release, personal financial disclosure documents are linked at the official portal — the Clerk of the House, Senate eFD, and the Florida Commission on Ethics — and are not parsed. No asset, income, or net-worth amount is published until an official report is attached line by line.
- 09
Committee membership is linked, not assembled
Congress.gov committee detail did not return membership in this API version. Until an official membership feed is available, committee sections stay “Not found in official filings” and link to the Clerk of the House and Senate committee directories.
- 10
Derived numbers show their work
Computed figures — for example, the share of contributions from individuals — are marked “Derived” and display the exact formula and inputs next to the result.
- 11
Candidate-stated material is quarantined
Anything that comes from the candidate rather than a filing is labeled “Candidate-stated” and never mixed into official figures.
- 12
No interpretation
We do not rate, rank, score, or characterize. A vote is shown as the clerk recorded it. A filing is shown as it was filed. What it means is your call, not ours.
- 13
Corrections beat pride
Every page links to a corrections channel. Correction requests are answered against the official record, and the response cites the filing that settles it.
Two tiers of sources
Every line on this site carries a tier label. Filed records and government-published pages are kept apart: a Tier 2 page is never blended into a Tier 1 section, and each line shows the tier it came from.
Tier 1 — Filed record
FEC filings, financial disclosures, roll-call votes, bills, campaign-finance extracts, and ethics reports. Every existing methodology rule applies to Tier 1 unchanged.
Tier 2 — Government-published (not a filing)
Content printed on official government domains that is not a legal filing. Examples: Congress.gov and Bioguide member pages, house.gov and senate.gov member About pages, House Clerk and Senate committee rosters, myfloridahouse.gov, flsenate.gov, nyassembly.gov, nysenate.gov, and official county and city directories.
Rules for Tier 2
- 01We copy what the page states and attribute it: “Per [source], retrieved [date]”.
- 02Tier 2 text is never merged into our own sentences.
- 03Short factual items only (office, term, committees, contact, portrait).
- 04Biographical text taken from an office's own page is labeled “Self-reported by the office”.
- 05Filed records stay pure: Tier 2 content is never mixed into Tier 1 sections, and every line shows its tier.
- 06If an official page cannot be fetched, the field is left empty and we say so. We never fill it from memory or third-party sites.
Derived statistics
Every derived number — a percentage, a ratio, or a count — states its inputs as “Based on X of Y, [period], [source]” and shows its formula next to the result. For example: “25 recorded positions ÷ 25 roll calls read in this ingest (100%). Derived.”
What the record does not contain
Legislators do not publish timesheets. There is no official record of hours worked, hours logged, or time spent in the district, so this site does not publish such a field — not as an estimate, not as a proxy, and not as a derived figure. What the record does contain is roll-call vote participation, sponsorship, and other recorded official acts, and that is what we show.
Likewise, we publish no grades, scores, rankings, ideology estimates, or party-loyalty percentages. Those are interpretations, not filings.
Data freshness
Each figure displays the as-of date of the filing it came from, not the date we copied it. Refresh cadence varies by source: FEC data updates on a regular schedule; Florida state data is imported from official exports. The retrieval date is kept with every record and is available on request.