---
title: About this corpus
description: What this corpus is, where it comes from, and how it is built.
type: guide
source: Montana COPP CERS
---

# About this corpus

This is a machine-readable copy of the Montana campaign finance record, built
for an AI assistant to search and quote.

## Where the data comes from

The Montana Commissioner of Political Practices operates the state's campaign
finance filing system. Candidates, political committees, lobbyists, and their
principals file into it. Those filings are public record.

This corpus is generated from that record. It is a copy, not the official
source. Where an answer matters, the official record governs.

## What is in it

- **People** — one document per person in the record, covering every candidacy.
- **Organizations** — committees, and the businesses and groups that appear in
  the money as donors or as paid vendors.
- **Races** — one document per office per election year, listing who ran.
- **Counties** — candidates by residence county, per cycle.
- **Cycles** — a summary of each election year.
- **Guides** — the five documents that explain how to read the record.

Every document is published as a web page and as markdown at the same path with
a `.md` suffix.

## How to use it

Read [How to read this data](/guides/how-to-read-this-data/) first. It carries
the rules that keep an answer true, and most of them exist because breaking one
produced a specific wrong answer about a real name.

[What this corpus cannot answer](/guides/limits-and-gaps/) lists the real gaps.
[The glossary](/guides/glossary/) defines the forms and schedules.
[How Montana elections are structured](/guides/montana-elections-primer/)
explains the offices and districts.

## How current it is

The corpus rebuilds nightly from the filing data. Each page states the date the
data runs through, and the date the page was generated. A page changes only when
its underlying numbers change.

## What it is not

It is not the official record. It reports no compliance determination. It ranks
nobody, and it draws no connection between money and any election result or
policy outcome. It states what was filed.