Public Town Square

About this guide

Public Town Square shows what each candidate on the ballot says about the main issues, in their own words, with a link to where they said it. It is a free, independent project.

How it is made

  • We use only the candidate's own public statements. We start with the candidate's campaign website, then questionnaires, debates and news interviews where the candidate is quoted directly. We never use a reporter's paraphrase.
  • Research is AI-assisted. Software agents search for each candidate's statements on ten topics and copy short quotes, one or two sentences, exactly as written.
  • Every quote is then checked word for word against the live page by a second, separate process, which also confirms the words are the candidate's own. Quotes that fail are removed.
  • A person reviews the guide before it is published.
  • Each quote shows its source type, publisher, the date it was published (when the page shows one) and the date we retrieved it. The sources page for each state lists all of them: Nebraska sources.
  • The short summary above each quote is in our words and is labeled "Summary". The quote and its link are the evidence.

What we do not do

  • No ratings, scores, endorsements or advice on how to vote.
  • We do not guess a stance from party, endorsements or silence. If we found nothing, the page says "No public position found." That is the same for every candidate.
  • No candidate photos and no party logos. Each candidate gets initials in a circle, the same for everyone, and party badges are our own plain design.
  • The Nebraska Legislature is officially nonpartisan, so we show no party for those races.
  • The topic coverage dots show only whether we found a public position on a topic, not what it is or whether it is good.
  • No tracking, no ads, no cookies.

Who is listed, and in what order

Candidates are listed alphabetically by last name, not in ballot order. The list of candidates comes from the official certified list:

Independence

Public Town Square is not affiliated with any campaign or party.

Corrections

If a quote is wrong, out of date or not the candidate's own words, please tell us atcorrections@publictownsquare.com. Include the page and the quote. Every change we make after launch is listed in the corrections log.

For campaigns

Campaigns can send a correction, or point us to a public statement we missed, atcorrections@publictownsquare.com.

  • Send the link to the public page where the candidate or campaign published the words: a campaign website, a questionnaire, a debate transcript or a news story that quotes the candidate directly.
  • We add only words the candidate or campaign published, with the source. We do not accept statements sent only to us, and we do not write or edit stances for anyone.
  • New quotes go through the same word-for-word check as every other quote, and follow the same limits: one or two sentences, at most two quotes per topic.
  • Every candidate gets the same treatment, whether or not their campaign contacts us.

For AI assistants and other tools

The guide is also published as plain text so assistants can quote it accurately and neutrally. Start withllms.txt, which explains how to present the guide (each candidate's own words with the source and date; no recommendations; "No public position found" where we have nothing).

  • A Markdown copy of every page: add .md to the address, for example /nebraska.md or /nebraska/us-senate.md. The whole guide in one file: /llms-full.txt.
  • Structured data: /nebraska/data.json. Top-level keys: schemaVersion, generatedAt, dataDate,notice, state, election, candidateSource, topics, parties, races,candidates, measures, sources. Each candidate has topics[] with our summary andquotes[] (text, speaker, url, sourceType, sourceTitle, publisher,published, retrieved, archiveUrl, verification). An empty quotes list means "No public position found." Candidates in nonpartisan races have no party field.
  • All of these files may be read by any site (open CORS) and any crawler.

Accessibility

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. The guide works without JavaScript, with a keyboard alone, with screen readers, when zoomed to 400%, in dark mode, and in Windows High Contrast mode. The topic coverage dots use shape (a filled dot or an empty ring) as well as color, and every table cell has a text label. Each page prints cleanly, with link addresses shown.

We test every page with automated checks (axe-core) in light and dark mode at phone and desktop widths, and by hand with a keyboard. If something does not work for you, please write tocorrections@publictownsquare.com and tell us the page and what happened.

Esta guía también está disponible en español: Public Town Square en español. Las citas de los candidatos están en el idioma original.