Pegasus News launches largest local elections database anywhere ever

by Mike Orren

PEGASUS NEWS WORLD HEADQUARTERS — Today, we're officially launching our May election coverage. And if you know us, you know that means databases a-go-go.

We've already done some interviews with candidates, and more are on the way, but the meat and potatoes lives here on our politics hub.

What you'll find on that page is a listing of local councils, ISD boards and commissioners courts. For all of them, you'll find all current members, linked up with any campaign contributions from the last election cycle -- at a minimum.

The jurisdictions in bold have May races that we are covering. Your town have a race and it's not in bold? It's either an ISD that was on spring break last week or a town that's got their information still en route. They'll be added ASAP. A few have been unresponsive -- We're talking to you, Hutchins.

We didn't just focus on the big cities. We've got 'em all from Addison to Wilmer and Argyle to White Settlement.

For each body, you'll see a list of candidates, sorted by the office for which they are running. If there is only one candidate shown for an office, they are unopposed. Click on the candidate and you'll find:

• Their picture if one was available
• Links to their campaign website, videos and any of our coverage or outside coverage that we thought was critical for voters
• Like most of our data-driven sections, a mechanism for registered users to "favorite" a candidate. (Feature will go live later today.)
• Many of the campaign contributions reported for this election cycle. As more are reported, we'll add them as quickly as we can. You'll see that you can click on individual contributors and addresses to find out everyone local to which an individual or group has contributed. (We're admittedly uneven here (manpower issue). But if we have any of the contributions for a jurisdiction for a given year, we have all of them. So it's apples-to-apples in each race. We're catching up as quick as we can.
• A feed of news stories and blog posts on candidates in most major races. That's all mayoral races, and the bigger council races. We made a call not to spend the time rolling the feed on some of the smaller town races because, frankly, there wasn't anything coming up in the feeds.
• And most importantly open user comments. Any registered user can post on a given candidate. If there's a story we've missed, a question about the candidate, or anything else on-topic you want to say or discuss, here's your chance. We're alerting all candidates by mail that these pages exist and the smart ones will watch their page and pay attention to what you, their constituents, have to say. The really smart ones will join the conversation.

We're also issuing an invitation to all candidates in all offices to come in for a video interview or, at least to do one by phone. We're guaranteeing that anyone who contacts us by two weeks before the election will get an interview.

We also mailed a candidate survey to every opposed candidate today. We'll post their answers on their pages when we get them. Any that don't respond by April 2 will get a notation that they didn't respond. And while we don't do endorsements at Pegasus News, I'd encourage you to think hard about voting for a candidate who can't take the time to respond to her constituents.

I can't stress this enough: These aren't our candidate pages. They are yours. Clearly, our tiny staff can't exhaustively cover 600 single race in terms of news stories. As far as I know, no big media outlet in town even tries. But YOU can do so, one at a time. Find an error? Let us know in the comments. If you're passionate about an issue or a candidate, post a comment. Got a juicy tip? Post a comment or send us an email. We'll follow up on as much as we can, but look at it this way: We built the room. Now you can fill it.

One of the nonfinancial goals of our business is to increase voter turnout and engagement in local politics. Our data team, led by Chris Curotolo, has sweated to make this a reality. I'm very proud of what they've done. I hope you find it useful.