October 10, 2026
The ballot
Start with the office that runs the election: a county board or the secretary of state. Its candidate list is who is printed on the ballot. A news story can point you there, but the list is the fact. If write-ins are on a separate list, leave them there.
Their words
Then the candidate's own site, a speech, or a verified account. Keep the date if the source has one. That sentence is what they said. It becomes an official act only when a vote, a bill, or a filing matches it.
The vote
House roll calls come from the Clerk. Senate votes are in the Congressional Record. A statehouse uses its journal. Read the question before the name: no on an amendment and no on passage are different nos. Someone who never held that kind of office has no hidden vote. The gap is the record.
The money
A House or Senate campaign files Form 3 with the FEC. The number belongs to a period, such as April 1 through June 30. No period, no usable total. A state candidate files with the state, under that state's rules.
The correction
Filings get amended. Pages get fixed. Look for the date, what changed, and the source. Our corrections log is public. The government file is still the underlying record.
What this will not do
It will not pick a candidate. A missing record stays missing. To see the records side by side, open the Iowa U.S. Senate desk. The methodology shows how a comparison gets its label. Next, in two minutes: what a voting record is.
The documents
- Office of the Clerk, House roll calls
- FEC, quarterly reports and Form 3
- Congress.gov, for the bill behind a vote
Sources retrieved September 23, 2026.