Contributions
My contribution to this project was using the LegiScan API to retrieve structured data on legislation pertaining to criminalization of voting behaviors. I additionally used Python to transform the data for analysis, e.g. to calculate the parties of bill sponsors and the extent to which sponsorship was partisan.
I also used the LegiScan API to query for new bills periodically that related to the topic, and uploaded relevant results via the Airtable API for review by reporters.
The structured data was ultimately used not just for reporting findings in the text piece and radio show, but for building an interactive tool through which people could examine such legislation in their own states.
I loved working with reporter Ese Olumhense and editor Maryam Saleh to think through what information might be of greatest use to our audience. I was also grateful to work on an investigation that not only expounds a complex political process like legislation, but also alerts people to how that process could materially affect them.