Frequently asked questions
- Where does the data come from?
- Campaign finance figures come from the Federal Election Commission's OpenFEC API, the official public record of every federal campaign's receipts and spending. Roll-call votes come from Voteview at UCLA, which publishes every House and Senate vote since 1789. Bill titles and policy areas come from the Library of Congress's Congress.gov API. Members are matched to their FEC filings through the open congress-legislators dataset.
- How current is it?
- Muqrakr keeps its own copy of everything it looks up so repeat searches are instant. Figures for past election cycles are final and never change. The current cycle is refreshed after 24 hours, and votes and bills are refreshed daily. The FEC itself updates summary totals daily and itemized filings every 15 minutes.
- What is an election cycle?
- Federal campaign finance is reported in two-year cycles ending in an even year, matching House terms. "2023–2024" covers everything raised and spent for the November 2024 election. Senators run every six years, so their totals accumulate across three cycles.
- Why can't I find a candidate?
- Search uses the FEC's name index, which lists candidates as "LAST, FIRST". Try just the last name, and check the cycle: a candidate only appears in cycles they filed for. Candidates who raised less than $5,000 may never have filed at all.
- What do "individual", "PAC" and "party" contributions mean?
- Individual contributions come from people, capped per election. PAC contributions come from political action committees, which pool money from members or employees. Party contributions come from party committees such as the DNC or RNC. "Other receipts" covers transfers from the candidate's other committees, loans, refunds and interest.
- Why do some votes have no bill title?
- Senate votes on nominations and treaties have no bill, so there is nothing to categorize. A few very recent bills may not have a title yet if the Library of Congress hasn't published one.
- Are the charts accessible?
- Every chart is accompanied by a table of the same figures, and the built-in color schemes were checked for red-green color blindness. You can also pick your own colors under "Chart colors" on the search page; Muqrakr warns you if two neighbors are hard to tell apart.
- Is Muqrakr affiliated with any party or campaign?
- No. It is an independent, open-source project. The source code is public.