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 fact comes from an official government source: the FEC, Congress.gov, the House Clerk, Senate disclosures, the Florida Division of Elections, the Florida Commission on Ethics, Sunbiz, the official New York Senate and Assembly member directories, and the New York State Board of Elections — 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
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.
- 04
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. A missing disclosure is a fact about the record, not a gap we paper over.
- 05
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.
- 06
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.
- 07
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.
- 08
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.
- 09
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.
- 10
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.
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.