Editorial Policy

Election Security Glossary (ESG) is a source-reference glossary. It is designed to help readers find, compare, understand, and verify terminology used in election administration, voting systems, cybersecurity, auditing, standards, law and policy, information integrity, and related fields.

ESG is not a conventional news or opinion publication. We do not treat a definition as useful merely because it has been collected from somewhere else. Our editorial work is to identify relevant terms, evaluate and attribute sources, preserve important differences between institutions, organize terms into a usable taxonomy, connect related concepts, and add context that helps readers interpret what each source means.

This policy explains how terms are selected, how definitions are sourced and reviewed, how single-source and multi-source entries are handled, how to interpret ESG's labels, and how readers can request a correction.

Election security language is used across different institutions, jurisdictions, professions, technical standards, and legal frameworks. The same term may have a widely shared meaning, a narrow domain-specific meaning, or several legitimate meanings that depend on context.

ESG aims to make those differences visible. Our goal is not to erase institutional variation or create artificial certainty. It is to give readers a traceable starting point and a clearer path back to the organizations and documents that use the term.

The glossary is intended to support research and verification by election officials, cybersecurity professionals, journalists, researchers, lawyers, policy teams, civic organizations, and other readers who need attributable terminology.

ESG applies the following principles across the glossary:

1. Traceability. Every published definition is connected to a named, reviewable source.
2. Faithful representation. ESG presents source language in a way that preserves the source's intended meaning, scope, and context.
3. Clear attribution. ESG distinguishes source material from ESG-authored summaries, labels, categories, comparisons, and contextual notes.
4. Context over false certainty. When institutions use a term differently, ESG explains or displays the difference rather than silently combining the definitions or choosing a winner without justification.
5. Editorial added value. ESG improves the usefulness of source material through selection, organization, categorization, comparison, cross-references, aliases, source metadata, and explanatory context.
6. Correctability. Readers have a clear way to report errors, changed source language, missing sources, and material differences in usage.
7. Nonpartisanship. Editorial decisions are not made to favor a candidate, party, campaign, political position, vendor, or institutional interest.

ESG's editorial process is responsible for the selection, organization, attribution, comparison, and maintenance of glossary entries.

The presence of a source definition does not mean that ESG created that definition. The selection of a primary definition, the organization of multiple sources, the application of categories and relationship labels, and the addition of contextual or related-term information are editorial decisions made by ESG.

Editorial decisions are based on the source record available at the time of review. They may change when an institution updates its language, when a more authoritative source becomes available, when a term's usage changes, or when a correction is supported by stronger evidence.

A term may be considered for inclusion when it helps readers understand the administration, security, technology, oversight, law, policy, or public communication of elections.

Selection factors may include:

• use in official election guidance, statutes, regulations, standards, technical documentation, or institutional glossaries;
• relevance to election administration, voting systems, cybersecurity, auditing, accessibility, governance, information integrity, or resilience;
• recurring use across agencies, jurisdictions, standards bodies, research institutions, or professional practice;
• a need to distinguish similar, overlapping, ambiguous, or easily confused concepts;
• a documented emerging use that falls within ESG's subject scope;
• value to readers who need an attributable definition or a comparison across institutions; and
• the availability of at least one source that can be identified and reviewed.

ESG does not add a term solely because it is trending, politically charged, or widely searched. A term must fit the glossary's reference scope and have enough source support to be presented responsibly.

Inclusion does not mean ESG endorses the term, the source institution, the policy described, or the conduct associated with the term. Exclusion does not mean a term is unimportant. The glossary is a maintained reference collection and its coverage develops over time.

ESG prioritizes durable, citable material published by institutions with relevant authority, responsibility, or subject-matter expertise.

Sources may include:

• election authorities and government agencies;
• standards bodies and official technical frameworks;
• international and intergovernmental organizations;
• peer-reviewed or institutionally published academic research;
• established election-science, cybersecurity, legal, or civic organizations; and
• professional reference documents with identifiable provenance and editorial responsibility.

When evaluating a source, ESG may consider:

• the identity and institutional role of the publisher;
• the document's purpose and intended audience;
• whether the material is public, durable, and citable;
• its relevance to the term and to election security;
• publication date, version, maintenance status, and evidence of supersession;
• jurisdictional, legal, technical, or operational scope;
• whether the wording is original to that source or derived from another document; and
• whether readers can inspect the underlying material.

Anonymous definition lists, unattributed compilations, social media posts, vendor marketing, and general news coverage are not normally used as the primary authority for a glossary definition. They may help identify a term or lead ESG to a more authoritative document, but they do not replace a qualifying source.

The current source inventory is available on the Sources page.

Source confidence is not the same as source agreement

ESG may assign a confidence tier to a source based on factors such as provenance, institutional authority, accessibility, maintenance, and editorial quality.

A source confidence tier does not determine whether several sources agree with one another. A high-confidence source can use a term differently from other high-confidence sources. A lower-confidence source can still preserve historically or operationally useful wording. Source confidence, term-level consensus, and per-source relationship tags are separate signals and are not interchangeable.

Editorial eligibility and reuse rights are separate questions

A source may be suitable for citation, comparison, and editorial reference without being owned by ESG or licensed for unrestricted commercial reuse.

Definitions and source documents remain subject to the rights and terms of their original publishers. ESG's inclusion of a source does not transfer ownership, grant a license, or imply that the source institution endorses ESG.

See the Terms and Conditions for information about using ESG content.

Each glossary entry identifies the institution or publication supporting the displayed definition. Where a reliable public link is available, ESG provides a path to the underlying source.

When source wording is reproduced, it remains attributed to the original source. When ESG adds a summary, category, alias, comparison, cross-reference, explanatory note, consensus description, or other context, that material is ESG editorial work and is not presented as a quotation from the source.

Minor display changes may be made for readability or consistency, including standardizing spacing, correcting obvious typographical artifacts, or expanding an acronym. These changes do not intentionally alter the substantive meaning of the source language.

When a definition is shortened, normalized, or paraphrased, the result preserves the source's material scope and remains clearly attributable. Readers making legal, operational, technical, or policy decisions should consult the original source document rather than relying only on the glossary display.

Primary definitions and source comparisons

A term page may lead with a primary definition. The primary definition is selected as the clearest and most useful entry point based on factors such as authority, clarity, scope, currency, relevance, and how well it represents the source cluster.

A primary definition is not a declaration that every alternative definition is wrong. It is an editorial starting point for the page.

Where other qualifying definitions exist, ESG may present them separately in a comparison view. This allows readers to see how institutions use the same term and whether differences arise from wording, jurisdiction, professional domain, document purpose, historical period, or substantive disagreement.

ESG does not silently blend definitions

ESG does not combine language from several institutions into a synthetic quotation that no institution actually published.

When sources agree, ESG may describe the shared meaning while keeping each source attributable. When sources differ, ESG aims to preserve the difference and explain why it matters. A narrow, technical, historical, jurisdiction-specific, or operational definition may remain valid in its own context even when a broader definition is used as the primary entry point.

Repeated wording is not automatically treated as independent agreement. Where several documents appear to reproduce or derive from the same underlying definition, ESG may treat the shared origin as relevant to the comparison.

ESG uses several types of labels. Each answers a different question.

Verified

A Verified marker indicates that an entry is connected to identified source material and has passed ESG's baseline source and attribution checks.

It does not mean that the definition is legally controlling, universally accepted, complete for every jurisdiction, or endorsed by every institution.

Term-level consensus

A term-level consensus label describes how the cited source set relates as a whole.

A term-level label summarizes the source set currently indexed by ESG. It is not a permanent ruling on the meaning of the term and may change as sources are added, revised, or retired.

When only one qualifying source is available, a cross-source consensus assessment is not possible. ESG identifies the entry as single-source coverage rather than treating the absence of comparison as proof of consensus.

Source coverage

A term's source count records how many qualifying sources ESG currently cites for that entry.

• Single-source coverage means ESG currently cites one qualifying source for the term, so no cross-source comparison is available.
• Multi-source coverage means ESG currently cites two or more qualifying sources for the term. The sources may agree closely, differ in wording or scope, or disagree in substance.

Source coverage is a count, not a judgment about reliability, consensus, or truth. It is also separate from the per-source Multi-source relationship tag described below.

Per-source relationship tags

Individual source cards may carry a relationship tag describing how that source relates to the entry's canonical or primary reading.

The per-source Multi-source tag is not merely a count of how many sources appear on the page. It describes the relationship between that source and the broader source cluster. A term can have several sources with different per-source tags.

Likewise, Single-source does not mean that no other definition exists anywhere. It means ESG currently has one qualifying source in its indexed source set for that term.

Similarity signals and editorial meaning

ESG may use software-assisted similarity signals to help compare source wording, identify possible duplicates, group related definitions, or flag potential divergence.

Textual similarity is only one input. Two definitions can use similar words while having different legal or operational effects, and two definitions can use different words while expressing the same core concept. Similarity scores therefore do not by themselves establish consensus, accuracy, authority, reliability, or legal applicability. When numerical ranges are used, they describe textual or semantic closeness within ESG's current source set; they are not final editorial judgments.

Editorial review considers the underlying document, source lineage, jurisdiction, scope, and substantive meaning before a primary definition, term-level consensus label, disputed status, or explanatory comparison is published or materially revised.

• deciding which terms belong within the election security reference scope;
• locating, evaluating, and documenting source provenance;
• organizing terms into a consistent taxonomy of categories and subject areas;
• normalizing titles, acronyms, aliases, and related forms for discovery;
• distinguishing source confidence from source agreement;
• selecting a useful primary definition while preserving alternative institutional wording;
• comparing sources and identifying consensus, scope differences, source lineage, or disputes;
• adding contextual notes that explain jurisdictional, technical, historical, or operational limits;
• linking related, broader, narrower, synonymous, or easily confused terms;
• maintaining stable term pages, source records, citation information, and review dates;
• identifying retired or superseded usage where it remains relevant to historical documents or legacy systems; and
• updating entries as institutions revise their language or new qualifying evidence becomes available.

Categories are editorial research aids. A term may be assigned to the category that best reflects its primary use and may also be connected to other relevant subject areas.

Category placement does not mean that a term belongs exclusively to one field. Election security terminology often crosses administration, law, cybersecurity, voting technology, standards, communications, governance, and public policy.

Aliases and acronym expansions are added to improve discovery and clarify when different labels point to the same or a closely related concept. ESG does not add an alias where doing so would erase a meaningful legal, technical, or institutional distinction.

Related-term links are selected to help readers distinguish adjacent concepts, follow a broader or narrower term, understand an acronym, or continue through a connected research path. A cross-reference is an editorial aid; it does not necessarily mean that two terms are interchangeable.

ESG may use software to support tasks such as source ingestion, text normalization, duplicate detection, term matching, similarity comparison, link checking, metadata validation, and change detection.

Automated outputs are research and maintenance aids. They are not independent authorities and are not presented as though a machine-generated score settles a legal, technical, historical, or institutional question.

Where editorial characterization matters - including selection of a primary definition, description of a substantive difference, application of a disputed label, or publication of ESG-authored context - ESG reviews the source record and its context rather than relying on an automated signal alone.

ESG uses a rolling maintenance process rather than treating the glossary as a finished publication. Weekly maintenance addresses operational changes and reader submissions, while quarterly review addresses broader source coverage, taxonomy, methodology, and systematic update priorities.

Weekly maintenance

Weekly editorial passes may include:

• adding qualifying terms and sources;
• reviewing correction and source submissions;
• checking revised institutional language;
• correcting attribution or transcription issues;
• updating aliases, categories, cross-references, and contextual notes;
• identifying broken or redirected source links; and
• recording accepted changes and updated review information where the site supports it.

A weekly maintenance cycle does not mean that every glossary entry is revalidated every week. Terms are prioritized according to source changes, reader submissions, age, significance, known ambiguity, and identified risk of error.

Quarterly review

Quarterly reviews assess broader editorial and structural issues, which may include:

• source coverage and source quality;
• taxonomy and category consistency;
• methodology and label definitions;
• systematic link or metadata problems;
• under-covered subject areas;
• groups of terms affected by a revised standard, law, or institutional glossary; and
• priorities for the next review cycle.

Priority review

ESG may carry out a priority review when a major election authority, standards body, government agency, or other significant source publishes a material revision, correction, replacement document, or new terminology framework.

Where available, a term page may show when the entry or its sources were last reviewed or checked. A displayed review date indicates the most recent recorded check for that entry; it is not a guarantee that no relevant source has changed since that date.

Older definitions may remain when they are useful for understanding historical records, superseded standards, or legacy systems. Where practical, ESG identifies such usage as historical, retired, superseded, or domain-limited rather than removing it without context.

Before or during publication, an entry is checked, as applicable, for:

• correct term spelling, capitalization, acronym, and aliases;
• the identity and title of the source;
• a working source link or sufficient citation information;
• fidelity between the displayed definition and the cited material;
• publication date, edition, version, or last-known update where available;
• relevant jurisdictional, legal, technical, historical, or operational limits;
• possible duplication with an existing term or alias;
• category placement and related-term connections;
• whether multiple source records are independent or derived from a shared origin;
• the suitability of the primary definition; and
• the accuracy of any consensus description, relationship tag, or contextual note.

A source-backed entry can still require revision. Verification means that ESG has identified and checked supporting source material; it does not mean the term has one universal meaning, that the source is legally controlling in every jurisdiction, or that no later source exists.

When two or more qualifying sources define the same term, ESG compares both the wording and the context in which each definition appears.

The review may consider:

• whether the sources are defining the same concept or using the same label for different concepts;
• whether a difference is substantive or mainly stylistic;
• whether one definition is limited to a jurisdiction, agency, standard, technology, profession, or operational setting;
• whether a source is newer, superseded, historical, or quoting an earlier authority;
• whether repeated wording reflects independent agreement or a shared source lineage;
• whether one definition is broader or narrower without being contradictory; and
• whether the difference is better explained than resolved.

Where appropriate, ESG presents a primary definition, alternative source definitions, source-by-source attribution, a term-level consensus assessment, and contextual notes describing material differences.

ESG does not treat the number of sources as a substitute for source quality or context. Several derivative sources do not necessarily outweigh one current and authoritative source. Likewise, a single-source entry is not automatically unreliable; it means that ESG does not yet have a qualifying cross-source comparison for that term.

Readers can submit:

• a factual, transcription, or attribution error;
• a definition that no longer matches its cited source;
• a broken, redirected, or incorrect source link;
• a missing authoritative source;
• evidence that a source has been revised or superseded;
• a category, alias, acronym, or cross-reference issue;
• evidence that a term is used differently by another institution;
• a concern about a consensus label or per-source relationship tag; or
• a suggestion for a relevant term not yet included.

Use the Contact page and select Correction / source.

A useful submission includes:

• the glossary term or term-page URL;
• the specific text, label, link, or metadata at issue;
• a link or full citation to supporting evidence;
• the relevant page, section, paragraph, or quoted wording from the source; and
• the change you believe ESG should consider.

Correction and source submissions are normally considered during the weekly maintenance process. They are reviewed against the cited source and, where relevant, other qualifying sources. An accepted correction may result in changes to a definition, attribution, source record, category, alias, comparison, consensus assessment, relationship tag, contextual note, related terms, or review date.

Not every disagreement requires a correction. Two institutions may use the same term differently, and both definitions may be valid within their respective contexts. In those cases, ESG may preserve both definitions and clarify the difference rather than deleting one.

ESG may decline a suggestion that falls outside the glossary's scope, lacks a reviewable source, duplicates an existing entry without adding useful context, relies primarily on promotional or unattributed material, or would misrepresent the cited institution.

ESG is maintained as a nonpartisan reference resource. Terms and definitions are selected for relevance, source value, and usefulness to readers - not to support a candidate, party, campaign, political outcome, product, or vendor.

Advertising, sponsorship, partnerships, or other commercial relationships do not determine which definition is primary, how a source is characterized, whether a disagreement is displayed, or how a consensus label is assigned. Paid placement is not accepted within glossary definitions, source comparisons, consensus assessments, or per-source relationship tags. Advertising and sponsored material should be clearly distinguishable from editorial glossary content.

Citing or linking to an institution does not mean that the institution endorses ESG. Inclusion in the glossary does not mean that ESG endorses every position, publication, product, or action of the cited institution.

Election law, administrative practice, technology, standards, and institutional language change over time. Definitions may also vary by jurisdiction, profession, document, and operational context.

ESG is provided for general information, education, research, and professional reference. It is not an election authority, government agency, law firm, standards body, or cybersecurity service. Content on the site is not legal advice, official election guidance, a security assessment, or a substitute for instructions from the relevant authority or a qualified professional.

For an official, legal, operational, procurement, compliance, or security decision, readers should review the original source and consult the relevant election authority, standards body, legal adviser, security professional, or other qualified expert.

ESG may update this Editorial Policy as the glossary, source base, labeling system, software, or review methods develop. The date at the top of this page identifies the latest published revision.

Questions about this policy, correction requests, and source suggestions can be submitted through Contact ESG. Readers can also learn more about the project on the About page or inspect the current source inventory.