Table of Contents
- Ballotpedia at a glance
- What the 2013 and 2015 reports show
- How the site scaled in 2016
- Why 2018 marked a major reach milestone
- What changed by 2019
- Data and coverage signals
- What the current donation page indicates
Ballotpedia statistics tell the story of a site built around scale, speed, and coverage. The numbers span article production, audience reach, staffing, revenue, and product usage, which makes the record useful for understanding how the project grew over time.
Ballotpedia at a glance
At a high level, Ballotpedia moved from an already large publishing operation to a much broader election-information platform. The dataset shows millions of readers, hundreds of thousands of articles, and expanding product usage across election cycles (Ballotpedia 2013 Annual Report; Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report; Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report; Ballotpedia 2018 Annual Report; Ballotpedia 2019 Annual Report).
A few headline figures stand out immediately:
- Over 225,000 professionally curated website articles in 2015 (Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report)
- 176,168,157 pageviews in 2016 (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report)
- 4.01 million users of the Sample Ballot Tool in 2018 (Ballotpedia 2018 Annual Report)
- More than 300,000 written articles onsite in 2019 (Ballotpedia 2019 Annual Report)
- More than 45,000 local elections across 32 states on the 2026 donation page (Ballotpedia donation page)
Those numbers are not isolated. They point to a long-running pattern of content expansion, election coverage growth, and repeated audience spikes around major voting periods.
| Period | Key statistic | Source label |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | More than 70 million page views | Lucy Burns Institute 2013 Annual Report |
| 2015 | Over 225,000 professionally curated website articles | Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report |
| 2016 | 176,168,157 pageviews | Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report |
| 2018 | 4.01 million Sample Ballot Tool users | Ballotpedia 2018 Annual Report |
| 2019 | More than 300,000 written articles onsite | Ballotpedia 2019 Annual Report |
| 2026 page | More than 45,000 local elections across 32 states | Ballotpedia donation page |
The broad shape is clear: Ballotpedia was not just publishing content, it was building a system that could absorb election demand, serve a large readership, and keep expanding the amount of structured information available to users.
What the 2013 and 2015 reports show
The earliest figures in the dataset set the baseline for later growth. In 2013, Ballotpedia received more than 70 million page views, and its lifetime page views exceeded 350 million (Lucy Burns Institute 2013 Annual Report). At that point, more than 90 percent of its articles ranked in Google’s top five search results, which suggests strong discoverability for a large share of the archive (Lucy Burns Institute 2013 Annual Report).
The same report says Ballotpedia was mentioned more than 1,000 times in the media and received more than triple the traffic of Project Vote Smart in 2013 (Lucy Burns Institute 2013 Annual Report). Those are useful context signals because they show the site had both visibility and comparative traffic strength before the later election-cycle expansion.
By 2015, the operation had become even larger. Ballotpedia had over 225,000 professionally curated website articles, answered 1,688 reader emails, published 160+ new articles each day, and recorded 4,210 media mentions (Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report). It also had 56,872 social media followers, with the follower count up 44 percent since 2014 and media mentions up 38 percent in the same period (Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report).
A useful way to read those figures is to separate output, audience, and awareness:
- Output: 160+ new articles each day and over 225,000 curated articles (Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report)
- Audience support: 1,688 reader emails answered (Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report)
- Awareness: 4,210 media mentions and 56,872 social media followers (Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report)
The staffing and revenue data from 2015 make the picture more concrete. Ballotpedia had 72 employees in December 2015, up from 55 in December 2014 (Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report). Within those totals, it had 64 full-time employees and 8 part-time employees in December 2015, compared with 35 full-time and 20 part-time employees in December 2014 (Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report).
Revenue also diversified. Total 2015 revenue was $4,301,570, made up of $150,067 in corporate donations, $247,600 in foundation grants, $3,772,013 from individual donors, $120,697 in in-kind donations, $8,792 in advertising revenue, and $2,400 in research grants (Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report). The mix shows a platform supported primarily by individual giving, with smaller contributions from several other streams.
How the site scaled in 2016
The 2016 report shows what happened when the content engine and election demand collided. Ballotpedia reached 125 as its highest Alexa ranking in 2016, recorded 176,168,157 pageviews, and added 43,725 pages during the year (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report).
That combination matters. Pageviews tell you audience size, while page growth shows the organization was still widening its coverage at the same time. The site also logged 11,303 media mentions and covered 12,500 elections in 2016 (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report). Those numbers reinforce the idea that election coverage was a major driver of visibility.
The election-season audience spike is even more striking. Ballotpedia had 20,300,000 unique visitors in the six weeks leading up to Election Day 2016, and its Sample Ballot Lookup Tool was used by 1,621,633 voters in that same period (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report). In other words, one tool alone became a major user path during the peak voting window.
The 2016 annual report also included ten-year totals that help show cumulative scale:
- 251,020 lifetime pageviews at the time of the ten-year totals display (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report)
- 18,991 website articles in the ten-year totals display (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report)
- 9,504 media mentions in the ten-year totals display (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report)
- 108,253 unique media outlets in the ten-year totals display (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report)
- 92,726 subscribers in the ten-year totals display (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report)
- 1,621,633 sample ballot tool users in 2016 (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report)
The year is also notable from an organizational perspective. Ballotpedia had 55 employees in December 2014 and 72 employees in December 2015, which shows that staffing increased before the 2016 election cycle hit full speed (Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report). That change likely mattered because the 2016 workload was substantial across content creation, election coverage, and tool usage.
Why 2018 marked a major reach milestone
The 2018 data show scale moving beyond steady growth into broad public reach. Ballotpedia’s Sample Ballot Tool was used by 4.01 million people in 2018, more than double the 2016 user count (Ballotpedia 2018 Annual Report). The same report says Ballotpedia reached 25.3 million voters before Election Day 2018 (Ballotpedia 2018 Annual Report).
That 25.3 million figure is especially useful because the report ties it to the broader electorate: those voters represented 22.4 percent of the 114 million people who voted in the 2018 midterm election (Ballotpedia 2018 Annual Report). This gives the number a sharper meaning than a raw audience count alone.
The 2018 report also says Ballotpedia’s readership milestone reached one billion page views on September 13, 2018, and that the site had more than 280,000 encyclopedic articles during the 2018 primary season (Ballotpedia 2018 Annual Report). Those two figures together imply a platform with both deep archive size and a very large cumulative audience.
Another useful detail is the top-100 traffic note. Ballotpedia was among the top 100 most visited websites in the United States for more than two weeks during 2018 election coverage (Ballotpedia 2018 Annual Report). That is a strong reach signal because it indicates the site was not just important within election information, but unusually visible at a national internet scale during the campaign period.
A compact comparison helps show the jump between 2016 and 2018:
| Metric | 2016 | 2018 | Change signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sample Ballot Tool users | 1,621,633 | 4.01 million | More than doubled (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report; Ballotpedia 2018 Annual Report) |
| Election-period voters reached | 20,300,000 unique visitors before Election Day 2016 | 25.3 million voters before Election Day 2018 | Broader election-cycle reach (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report; Ballotpedia 2018 Annual Report) |
| Content scale | 43,725 pages added in 2016 | More than 280,000 encyclopedic articles during 2018 primary season | Larger content base (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report; Ballotpedia 2018 Annual Report) |
Even without additional context, the pattern is clear: election tools and election-season content became major traffic drivers, and Ballotpedia used those moments to expand both reach and visibility.
What changed by 2019
By 2019, the dataset shows a mature organization with a broad publishing base and a defined team structure. Ballotpedia hosted 54 webinars from the start of its webinar program through 2019, and those webinars were viewed nearly 7,000 times by 2019 (Ballotpedia 2019 Annual Report).
The staffing footprint also settled into a more stable shape. Ballotpedia had a workforce of 50 in 2019, and 29 employees had three or more years of tenure that year (Ballotpedia 2019 Annual Report). That level of tenure matters because it suggests the organization had retained experienced staff while continuing to operate at scale.
On the publishing side, Ballotpedia had more than 300,000 written articles onsite in 2019, and Ballotpedia News received over 100,000 pageviews in less than one year by 2019 (Ballotpedia 2019 Annual Report). Those two metrics show the site was no longer only a static archive or seasonal election resource. It was also running an active news and information layer that attracted meaningful readership.
The 2019 report includes especially focused election-coverage data as well. Ballotpedia’s state supreme court coverage identified 344 state supreme court justices across the country, and 19 percent of those justices were chosen in partisan elections (Ballotpedia 2019 Annual Report). The remaining 81 percent were selected by legislatures, appointed by governors, or chosen in nonpartisan elections (Ballotpedia 2019 Annual Report).
That split is useful because it shows how Ballotpedia’s data work translated into a structured view of judicial selection across the country. It also highlights the site’s role as an explainer and indexing resource rather than only a publishing outlet.
Data and coverage signals
Several statistics in the dataset point to the kind of coverage Ballotpedia emphasizes. The site’s criminal justice dashboard covers police CBAs in all 50 states and also covers the 100 most populous cities in the United States (Ballotpedia CBA Dashboard). That is a broad geographic scope, and it shows the site can manage both statewide and major-city coverage in one dataset.
The Ballotpedia Data Client Documentation adds more evidence of structured data coverage. Its officeholders dataset includes Congress, statewide positions, state legislative positions, and elected officials in the top 100 cities by population (Ballotpedia Data Client Documentation). It also maintains a comprehensive directory of school board members across the United States (Ballotpedia Data Client Documentation).
The elections API data are similarly broad. According to the documentation, the election-by-state API can return candidates, ballot measures, and races for federal, state, and local office levels (Ballotpedia Data Client Documentation). It also supports office_branch values for legislative, executive, and judicial races, along with district_type values spanning country, congressional, state, state legislative, judicial, county, city-town, school district, and special district categories (Ballotpedia Data Client Documentation).
Those details matter because they show the underlying structure behind the public-facing site. Ballotpedia is not just collecting articles; it is organizing election and officeholder information into machine-readable and coverage-ready categories.
What the current donation page indicates
The current donation page adds one more useful signal about the scope of ongoing coverage. It says Ballotpedia will cover more than 45,000 local elections across 32 states, and that monthly gifts of $13 or more unlock ad-free access to Ballotpedia (Ballotpedia donation page).
That coverage estimate is important because it shows the organization still frames itself around high-volume election tracking. It also suggests that local election coverage remains a major part of the platform’s value proposition, not just national races or top-line political information.
If you map the dataset from earliest to latest, three themes keep repeating:
- Scale of publishing: from 225,000+ articles in 2015 to more than 300,000 written articles onsite in 2019 (Ballotpedia 2015 Annual Report; Ballotpedia 2019 Annual Report)
- Scale of audience: from more than 70 million page views in 2013 to 176,168,157 pageviews in 2016 and one billion page views reached in 2018 (Lucy Burns Institute 2013 Annual Report; Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report; Ballotpedia 2018 Annual Report)
- Scale of election coverage: from 12,500 elections covered in 2016 to more than 45,000 local elections across 32 states on the current donation page (Ballotpedia 2016 Annual Report; Ballotpedia donation page)
Taken together, the statistics describe an organization that built durable reach by combining a large publishing archive, election-season product usage, and data coverage across offices, jurisdictions, and election types. The numbers do not point to a single viral moment. They point to a long-term operating model built around sustained information demand.