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` "Bob 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).

> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** Not all "small" corrections are considered minor, since some changes can still cause issues with disambiguation (e.g. if both "John Smith" and "Jon Smith" were different candidates or officeholders).

## 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.