Big Local News is part of a collaborative effort with multiple organizations to help U.S. newsrooms handle the elections, and challenges that may rise after.

Election Urgent Care provides rapid resources on multiple topics, through a community Slack.

There, you can request assistance from Big Local News for any data-related questions reporters and newsrooms may have as they cover this historic election. We also provide data on voting machines, provide access to DataTalk (an experimental system that assists with campaign finance data), and other tools.

A sampling of how Big Local News can help:

  • DataTalk, which allows for natural-language queries of large public datasets from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and OpenSecrets.org to help journalists and other researchers tap into the latest mandatory filings.

  • We have multiple story recipes on campaign finance and other election-related topics that walk reporters through how to use different datasets.

  • Our team of data journalists can help you gather and work through any data you may be interested in, no matter your experience level.

Following the election, Big Local News is also hosting virtual open office hours, an opportunity to get guidance on public record requests, data discovery, data processing, cleaning and analysis. Join us on Zoom Friday, Nov. 8, from 10-12 p.m. Pacific Time.

About Election Urgent Care

Newsrooms can sign up for free resources to enhance their coverage of the post-election period in the U.S. through Election Urgent Care from a coalition of organizations led by the Knight Election Hub, Votebeat, and Hearken.

Journalists covering U.S. elections may face unexpected challenges following the election. The Election Urgent Care team, which also includes representatives from Muckrock and OpenNews, plan are providing rapid resource matching for election-related support services in the following focus areas:

  • Safety, including digital defense from online threats, cybersecurity and physical security.
  • Legal assistance, both with advice on election law and legal representation where possible.
  • Journalistic background advice on how to cover unexpected tactics and events related to election administration.
  • Document and data gathering from states and municipalities.
  • Data wrangling and analysis for newsrooms that lack data journalism capacity.
  • Other services as needed.

Newsrooms covering U.S. elections are invited to apply for access to the Votebeat Expert Desk/Election Urgent Care Slack. This program is not for partisan organizations.

About Big Local News

From its base at Stanford University, Big Local News gathers data, builds tools and collaborates with reporters to produce journalism that makes an impact. Its website at biglocalnews.org offers a free archiving service for journalists to store and share data.

Learn more by visiting our About page.