The following guidelines outline how to manage name changes, corrections, and
data integrity across our data feeds. While the examples in this guide refer to
Person entities, these rules apply universally to all named entities—including
Candidates, Parties, etc.
Completely Incorrect Name
If a person had a completely incorrect name that they never had that could have
caused us to mistake their identity (e.g. person123 was incorrectly named
"John Smith" in the feed when they were actually "Bob Smith" the whole time)
then that person and stable ID should be removed from the feed and retired as a
permanently erroneous person and a new one with a new ID should be added (e.g.
person123 is removed and never used again, and person456 "John Smith" is
added).
Minor Correction in Name
If a person has a minor typo in their name or their official name is slightly
different but is otherwise identifiable, then a name fix in the feed is fine
(e.g. person123 was named "Johnn Smith" but the official name is "John Smith"
or "John K. Smith" or "Johnny Smith" or similar)
Official Name Change
If a person has an official name change but is the same person, then it's fine
to just change their name completely since at the time the person with that
stable ID was first introduced the name was correct so their identity was likely
correctly determined at that time (e.g. person123 was named "Bob Smith" in
2024 and showed up as such in the 2024 feed, but then changed their name to
"John Smith" in 2025).
Duplicates
If a person in a feed is found to be a duplicate of another person in the feed or another person that the feed has provided in the past the provider should remove the duplicate from the feed and retire the stable ID as an invalid person never to be used again.