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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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Adding Candidates to Races/Endorsements/Etc
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| Parent |
About Website
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| Answer |
When adding Candidates, it is important to not create duplicates.
The First Name field is optional and meant to be used rarely, when you are sure the Candidate exists or if there is uncertainty with the Last Name and you are only using the First Name field. Using both fields is a very narrow search, and if nothing is found, there may be a problem with your search parameters rather than that the Candidate does not exist.
When searching Last Names, it is better to leave off any extra info instead of entering it in case the Candidate does not have this info entered or it is entered in a different format than you are searching on. For instance, suffixes such as Jr, Sr, PhD, II, III should not be searched for. Also note that Candidates with suffixes often appear alphabetically after all the non-suffix results, so make sure you look for them farther down the list.
Similarly, compound Last Names such as VanRoth could also be spelled Van Roth with a space, and your search without one would not find the Candidate. Best to search for just "Roth" to make sure you find the spelling.
Multiple last names - often maiden names for female candidates, but also some male names - also form a similar challenge. Best to search for just one - and if the result is not found, back up and search the other one because they may have previously been entered with only one. This would also take care of the hyphen-versus-space issue.
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Modified | RP - March 15, 2015 06:45pm |
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