Helpful links
While we strive for this site to be as intuitive and self-evident as possible, we all need a little help sometimes. Here we will introduce you to how to access the resources we provide as well as provide clues as to who we are and what we hope to accomplish in this site.
Read here about what we hope to accomplish with the site, why we thought it was necessary and who we hope to reach.
We have provided several examples of searches, statistics of various kinds, data summaries of census, election and campaign finance data, census maps, electoral maps, campaign contribution maps, comparative maps ... lots of stuff, check it out!
Accessing Maps about Politics
There are three places where you can access maps about politics: election pages, candidate pages and census pages
On the Election and Candidate pages you will find 'Maps' tabs where you will find ward-level and precinct-level maps about the elections and/or candidates
On the Census pages you will find several tabs (Community, IL House, Ward, Zip Code, et al) and on each tab there are maps of census information.
On the Election and Candidate pages you will find 'Maps' tabs where you will find ward-level and precinct-level maps about the elections and/or candidates
On the Census pages you will find several tabs (Community, IL House, Ward, Zip Code, et al) and on each tab there are maps of census information.
Accessing Campaign Finance Data
There are three places where you can access campaign finance data about politics:
Campaign Finance Index, election pages and candidate pages.
The easiest way to find campaign finance information is the index.
It contains links to election and candidate pages that have campaign finance data.
On each page with finance data you will find tabs for ward-level and other summaries, top donor lists and, very soon, maps of finance data
Currently, we have campaign finance data up to 1999. This data was hand-collected by social scientists in the Chicago area. As soon as the 2007 campaign finance reports are finalized by the state for the 2007 election, we will be publishing 2000 to current.
Currently, we have campaign finance data up to 1999. This data was hand-collected by social scientists in the Chicago area. As soon as the 2007 campaign finance reports are finalized by the state for the 2007 election, we will be publishing 2000 to current.
Coming Soon
Maps of Campaign Finance Data (zip, ward, etc). Historical and biographical background from intelligently selected web documents about candidates and major donors (>5,000 to any candidate). 2000-2007 Election and Campaign Finance Data. As soon as the campaign disclosure reports are filed (summer 2007) we will add this data to the site
Go to the Choose Election screen and find the election you want.
You can also use the general search screen to search for the election you want.
To access information about a particular client, go to the Choose Candidate screen and find the candidate you want.
You can also use the general search screen to search for the candidates you want.
Go to the Choose Census screen and find the census statistics you want.
You can also use the general search screen to search for the census area you want.
Go to the Board and Commission Political Appointments screen and choose a board or commission from the list.
The appointments are summarized by race and gender.
You can also use the general search screen to search for the board and commission you want.
Go to the Employment Summaries screen and choose city department from the list.
The employment data is also summarized by various categories (race, gender, etc.).
You can also use the general search screen to search for the department you want.
We offer several different types of information and views of the information we have. Learn here about searching and browsing formats, charts and graphs of statistical information, multimedia and historical object indexes, maps and other geographic data. Learn also about how to download our data as well as how to submit data to be archived and viewed using our toolkit.
