2.
Project Vote Smart is a non­partisan, non­profit national research center. We collect factual and
relevant information, such as biographical information, issue positions, voting records, and
campaign finance, on elected officials and candidates from the Presidency to Congress,
Governors and the State Legislature. All of this information is provided to the public
free­of­charge.

3.
Vote Smart's Mission
Project Vote Smart is the nation's defender of self­government guaranteed to every citizen by the
Constitution of the United States. We believe, as James Madison once wrote, that "a popular
government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce
or a tragedy...and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the
power which knowledge gives." Project Vote Smart is dedicated to a mission of providing this
knowledge to all American citizens as an essential resource for the protection of informed
self­government for generations to come. Project Vote Smart will accomplish this by:
● Providing all citizens with accurate, abundant, relevant information on candidates,
incumbents, and issues free of charge whenever they have a question or concern.
● Upholding the highest standards of accuracy, balance, and integrity of any information
gathered or shared.
● Maintaining strict non­partisanship in both our data and programs, through a review and
approval process established and conducted by our Founding Board, which must remain
balanced across the political spectrum.
● Accepting funding only from private citizens and foundations without corporate ties.
● Relying on the commitment of volunteers, interns, and staff members willing to accept
minimal compensation as the primary source of labor in gathering and sharing this
information.
● Using all available public information channels (i.e., electronic, telephone, print, media,
public libraries) to disseminate the information gathered.

4.
Name: James Foster
Job Title: Research Intern
Sub­Department: Speeches
Supervisor: Britton Fraser
Training: System categorization and tagging, SQL code, data­entry, quality­control.
Duration: 5/30/2016 ­ 8/05/2016
James has been a very positive addition to the Speeches Sub­Department. He is has become
very proficient at collecting, Categorizing and Tagging speeches. He always maintained a
courteous and professional demeanor in office and on the phone Hot­Line.
James was specifically responsible for collecting and updating all Congressional and Senatorial
official and campaign websites. This was very tedious work, involving reading and summarizing
a daily goal of 85 separate statements made by officials. This process includes extensive use of
speed reading, comprehension, and information association skills. He also took a large role in
our quality control initiatives, eliminating hundreds of formatting and standardization errors.
In addition to the above mentioned work he also provided extensive help in testing out a new
project in the Speeches sub­department. While helping us test the Floor Harvester, James
reported errors in the program and presented valuable input as to how we could make the
program more efficient and easier to use.

5.
Project Vote Smart’s National Internship Program
Goal:
During James’s internship he successfully collected speeches and statements from different
political candidates across the country. This work included statements from members of
Congress, Senators, Governors, and political candidates from various state elections.
In addition to data collection James also attended to Hot­Line phone calls and completed office
and lodge chores.
Objective:
The objective for interns in the Speeches department is to collect statements from a candidate's
website, House/Senate Committee websites, enter it into the database, then categorize and tag
each statement so that voters using our website are able to find the information they need in an
easy and efficient manner.
Audience:
All the information that interns (and staff) enter into the database goes on the organization's
website: www.votesmart.org and is provided so that voters can access whatever information
they need to make an informed, decision this election year. In addition to having all this
information online, Vote Smart interns also attend to Hotline phone calls where they research
and answer any political or policy related questions from voters.
Expectations:
Interns in the Speeches department are given schedules with lists of candidates to update; they
are expected collect a minimum of 85 speeches/statements a day. They are also expected to
abide by Vote Smart’s strict non­partisan policy both in entering data and within the office itself.

6.
Speeches Department
General Overview
As we all know, what someone says does not always coincide with what they do, and politicians
are no different. A citizen can go to the Vote Smart website and see if a candidate’s or official's
speeches and public statements line up with his or her votes, or even if there are contradictions
between public statements from the past. In plain terms, we want to ensure that citizens can find
out exactly what candidates and officials are saying or have said. We take our coverage a step
further by enabling voters to search through a candidate or official's public statements by any
issue they choose. This is a unique feature of the sub­department. Politicians talk about a wide
range of topics, which makes for interesting work.
We collect all public statements relating to policy made by the President, Vice President, Cabinet
members, Governors, members of Congress, and the candidates running in a general election
for these positions. The keyword­searchable and issue­sortable database is updated daily with
public statements and policy.

7.
Research Intern Learning Objectives
Critical Thinking:
Through all of our categorization projects, speech collection, key speeches and social
contributions the research department provides interns endless opportunities to sharpen their
vital skill of critical thinking. Interns are required to quickly assign categories and tags to
thousands of statements, speeches, biographical information and special interest groups.
Attention to Detail:
The department has incredibly strict formatting guidelines for the data that we collect everyday.
Attention to detail is necessary for any employment and all educational purposes.
SQL:
Structured Query Language (SQL) is a computer language that is used to directly search for
information in large databases. Interns are given training in this during their fifth week at Vote
Smart. It allows them to perform complex and extremely specific searches of our database to
pull up information for either users or office use. This coding language is used by many other
organizations that manage large databases as well, making it a very useful and transferable skill.
Communication Skills:
In addition to basic communication skills, such as answering research questions via our
research hotline, interns also learn inter­department communication skills. Interns discuss new
ideas for the research department as well as suggest new ideas for the PCT, key votes and the
development department. Interns are forced to improve their communication skills simply based
on the fact that interns live, work, and hang out together.
Leadership Skills:
As the internship progresses and intern work improves in quality and quantity, interns may be
asked to take on more of a leadership role within the department. They may be asked to assist
staff members with checking other intern work and helping staff complete assignments that
interns are very familiar with.
Research Skills:
Basic research skills are gradually perfected and advanced research skills are acquired.
Developing from basic questions to a more comprehensive understanding of governmental
functions and procedures, research interns learn more about the actual workings of our
government than any other department. Interns must understand why we do what we do in order
to really shine in our department, and that means sharpening their research skills into a
formidable resource. This will include learning how to gather, synthesize and translate important
data into information suitable for analysis and broad understanding. Interns also gain the
discipline to handle larger academic and professional projects; there's no question that the work

8.
of a research intern is demanding and repetitive, and after this the workload of statistical
research projects will be quite familiar.
Practical Knowledge about the U.S. Government and its Operations:
In addition to specialized knowledge in particular areas, interns will gain expertise in resources
for information on politicians and political data, and how to access them, as well as familiarity
with the candidates and officials governing our lives.

9.
Speeches and Public Statements Data Standards
Scope of Work
Offices ­ Those that hold Federal Office, including the President, Vice­President, Cabinet
members, Senators, and Representatives. The only State offices we track are Governors.
These groups combine for over 600 officials and we track each differently depending on their
office and whether they are in the leadership or sit on a committee.
Content Covered ­ In the Speeches sub­department, we take any public statement that relates to
policy. More specifically, we want anything a politician says about a particular issue. It could be
as short as a sentence, or as long as the State of the Union.
Content Covered Per Politician ­ Date, Location, Type of Speech, Title, and Text. In addition, we
Categorize and Tag each public statement so that we can make meaningful connections
between data and so that our database is navigable.
Data Sources
Primary Sources:
We take as much data as we can from primary sources. A primary source can be defined as
"the most direct source." We want our data to come from the politicians themselves. Ideally, they
would fill out a form we send them, and that would be the most direct source. That is unrealistic
however, so we choose to take data from official websites (Government, Campaign, or both), as
this is where the politician communicates with the public. In the public statements
sub­department, we use sections of these websites like: "News", "Media", etc.. Below, are some
examples of websites we qualify as primary sources:
● Government Websites
● Cabinet Websites
● Leadership Websites
● Committee Websites
● Government Publishing Office (Congressional Record)
Secondary Sources:
A secondary source can be defined as any source not published by the politician themselves (or
by their staff). The New York Times, for example, is a secondary source. We collect three types
of secondary sources: news articles, op­eds, and TV transcripts. We take from secondary
sources as a regular part of our collection process (when you find them on politician's websites),
and we sometimes search them out for higher priority data such as presidential debates.

10.
Frequency of Updates:
This depends entirely on the office the official holds or the candidate is seeking, as well as if it's
an election year and if there is a backlog. We update "schedules" on a rolling basis, which is
consistently being adapted. Below is a list of the ideal frequency of updates for each
office/schedule:
Regular Schedules:
● President and Vice­President
● Cabinet
● Governors
● Congressional Leadership
● Congressional Committees
● Senate
● House
Special Schedules:
TV Transcripts:
Due to the high productivity of all interns this summer, we were able to update TV transcripts for
the first time in almost a year. This involves going to TV news shows websites and finding and
uploading to our website transcripts of interviews with politicians that we track. These are one of
the more unique and interesting sources we take our data from.
Floor Speeches Harvester:
This year we implemented a new “Harvester” that automatically updates statements politicians
make on the House or Senate Floor to our website. Interns receive training in how to Categorize
and Tag statements uploaded from the Harvester and on how to navigate through it. Since this is
a new program, they also played a key role in reporting any bugs in the program and keeping an
eye out for errors the program didn’t catch as well as suggesting any features that might aid in
productivity and efficiency while working on the Harvester.
­Election Schedules:
Presidential Election: Challengers Special Elections

11.
Example Schedule: House 1 Thursday A
Stat
e
Distri
ct Name
Candidat
e ID Link Thomas
Thomas
Complet
ed By
Websit
e
Website
Complet
ed By
CA 47
Lowenthal,
Alan 16469
http://lowenthal.house.gov
/ 12/13/15 Bill 7/7/16 JamieH
CA 48
Rohrabach
er, Dana T. 26763
http://rohrabacher.house.
gov/ 12/13/15 Bill 7/7/16 JamieH
CA 49
Issa,
Darrell 16553
http://issa.house.gov/ne
ws­room/press­releases 12/13/15 Bill 7/7/16 JamieH
CA 50
Hunter,
Duncan D. 104308
http://hunter.house.gov/ne
ws­room
12/13/20
15 Bill 7/7/16 JamieH
CA 51
Vargas,
Juan 29100
http://vargas.house.gov/m
edia­center 12/13/15 Bill 7/7/16 JamieH
CA 52
Peters,
Scott 70351
http://scottpeters.house.g
ov/media­center 12/13/15 Bill 7/7/16 JamieH
CA 53
Davis,
Susan A. 8168
https://susandavis.house.
gov/ 12/13/15 Bill 7/7/16 JamieH
CO 1
DeGette,
Diana L. 561 http://degette.house.gov/ 12/13/15 Bill 7/7/16 JamieH
CO 2
Polis,
Jared 106220 http://polis.house.gov/ 12/13/15 Bill 7/7/16 JamieH
CO 3
Tipton,
Scott R. 65403 http://tipton.house.gov/ 12/13/15 Bill 7/7/16 JamieH
CO 4 Buck, Ken 125319 https://buck.house.gov/ 12/13/15 Bill 7/7/16 JamieH
CO 5
Lamborn,
Douglas L.
'Doug' 2698 http://lamborn.house.gov/
12/13/20
15 Bill 7/8/16 JamieH
CO 6
Coffman,
Mike 1535 http://coffman.house.gov/ 12/13/15 Bill 7/8/16 JamieH
CO 7
Perlmutter,
Ed 2653
http://perlmutter.house.go
v/ 12/13/15 Bill 7/8/16 JamieH