How we work
Methodology
How the record is built and checked, what each label means, and the limits of the data.
Claim, evidence, source, verification, audit trail
Every figure and judgement on Mandate SA can be traced back to a source. Official data is loaded from a captured copy of the source, fingerprinted with SHA-256, checked automatically against the source’s own totals, and approved by a staff member before it becomes public. Every page shows its source; the “Details” under a source show the fingerprint and when it was captured.
What the labels mean
- Official record: what an official source states, exactly as published, with its source. It is not our finding.
- Claim: a specific statement someone made, recorded with who said it, when and where, and the captured source of the statement. Recording a claim does not mean it is true.
- Sourced statement: something a party or person says on their own account or in a right of response, published as theirs.
- Fact check: an editor’s assessment of a claim against published evidence, with its method and a verdict from the fixed scale below.
- Allegation: Mandate SA does not publish unproven allegations of wrongdoing. Wrongdoing is reported only from official or adjudicated records, such as a court judgment or an Auditor-General finding, labelled with their status.
- Verified account: our staff confirmed who holds an account. It is not an endorsement of anything the account says.
- Unverified value: a published figure we could not reconcile with related figures. It is shown as published, explained, and never totalled.
Verdicts
Only checkable claims get a verdict. Opinions and predictions are not rated. “Insufficient evidence” is a legitimate outcome and never means “false”.
| Verdict | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Supported | The record supports the claim as made. |
| Partially supported | Part of the claim is supported; the rest is not, or is overstated. |
| Contradicted | The record states otherwise. |
| Unsubstantiated | Nothing on the record supports the claim and the claimant has produced no evidence. |
| Insufficient evidence | The record does not hold enough to judge either way. Not a finding of falsehood. |
| Disputed | Official sources disagree with each other; both are shown. |
Review before publication
- Every fact check and analysis is drafted by one editor and approved by a different one. The database refuses self-approval.
- High-risk items, such as anything implying wrongdoing about a named person, need a senior editor's approval and are published by someone other than the author.
- Evidence must resolve to records on the published record before a draft can be submitted.
- Test accounts cannot publish to the public record. The database refuses it outside disposable test databases.
Limits of the data
- Absence from the record does not mean something did not happen. It may not be published, or not yet captured. Coverage pages say what is missing.
- Boundaries change. A ward is compared only with itself on the same delimitation; earlier elections used other boundaries (see electoral coverage).
- Missing data is shown as missing, never as zero.
- Some official figures conflict with each other. We show them as published, with the conflict explained (see coverage).
- Assistance from software, such as extraction or deterministic analysis, is disclosed. Verdicts and verifications are made by people.