[openspending-dev] Find stories by tracking anomalies in data

Wed May 15 19:32:55 UTC 2013

All,

OpenSecrets (US) just launched what looks to be a nifty tool aimed at
helping journalists and citizens to find stories in their campaign finance
data:
http://www.opensecrets.org/resources/learn/anomalies.php

They seem to have set a few queries/models, which will flag lawmakers who
appear to be out of the norm, such as:

   1. Lawmakers sponsoring legislation that was lobbied by only one company
   or other organization whose employees or PAC also donated to the sponsoring
   lawmakers.
   2. Lawmakers receiving twice as much in contributions from their top
   donors as their next highest donors.
   3. Lawmakers receiving twice as much in contributions from their top
   donor industries as their next highest donor industries.
   4. Lawmakers receiving more than 50 percent of their itemized
   contributions from out of state.

Thought the similarities to what we've discussed around finding stories in
data on OpenSpending we're quite striking.

Anders

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Anders Pedersen

Community Coordinator  |  skype: anpehej  |  @anpe <https://twitter.com/>

The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/>

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