The ELECTCON level is computed live from a weighted composite of all scored inputs across the dashboard. As each section loads, scores feed into the Election Risk Composite (ERC) engine, which updates the gauge in real time.

ERC Formula (weighted composite, 0–10):

• Threat Signal Bars avg — 20%
• Resistance Signal Bars avg (inverted) — 20%
• Actor Threatening avg — 15%
• Actor Defending avg (inverted) — 10%
• Contributing Conditions avg — 15%
• State Political Actions avg — 10%
• Foreign Interference avg — 10%

If a section hasn't loaded yet, its weight is redistributed proportionally across available inputs. The ERC score display shows how many of the 7 inputs are currently active.

The six signal bars (3 Threat, 3 Resistance) are manually curated by EIW analysts using open-source reporting, court filings, legislative tracking, and news aggregation. Scores are 0–100. The 50% threshold line indicates the midpoint between minimal and severe risk. Trend arrows (↑↓→) reflect movement over the prior 14 days.

• Gov. Coordination — Documented coordination between federal actors and election-interference networks.
• Legal Exposure — Volume and severity of litigation and executive actions threatening voting rights.
• Threat Urgency — Composite of recent high-severity escalation events, weighted toward last 14 days.
• Legal Resistance — Strength of active pro-democracy litigation (Democracy Docket, ACLU, CLC).
• Political Will — Visible political resistance from elected officials across party lines.
• Institutional Hold — Resilience of election administration infrastructure at state and county level.

The Political Actor Scorecard, Contributing Conditions, State Political Actions, and International Context panels are all scored by Claude (claude-sonnet-4-5) via the Anthropic API with live web search enabled. Each panel sends a structured prompt requesting current scores on a 0–100 scale, an overall risk level, and a one-sentence summary.

Scores are generated fresh each time the dashboard loads and refresh automatically every hour. AI scores reflect publicly available information at the time of the search — they are probabilistic assessments, not verified facts, and should be treated as analytical starting points rather than authoritative determinations.

Important limitation: AI scoring is subject to search result availability, model interpretation, and the inherent uncertainty of translating complex political situations into numerical scores. EIW does not represent these scores as objective ground truth.

Six key battleground states are monitored: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada. Each state is scored across four dimensions via live AI web search:

• Election Denier Officials (0–100) — Presence of election deniers in SOS, AG, Governor, or county board positions.
• Restrictive Legislation (0–100) — Active bills targeting mail voting, voter ID, poll access, or election administration independence.
• Voter Suppression Risk (0–100) — Purge activity, registration barriers, polling closures, and ID requirements.
• Admin Stability (0–100) — Vacancies, turnover, threats to officials, and partisan interference in boards.

An OVERALL badge (LOW / MEDIUM / HIGH / CRITICAL) reflects the composite risk level for that state.

Three international panels are scored via live AI web search: Foreign Interference Threats (Russia, China, Iran, and disinformation amplification), Allied Democracy Health (UK, Germany, France, Canada), and Global Democratic Recession (backsliding rate, autocracy expansion, press freedom, international rule of law).

Allied democracy scores use an inverse scale: 100 = democracy in serious crisis, 0 = fully healthy. This allows all panels to share a consistent visual language where red = high risk.

Sources drawn upon include Freedom House, V-Dem Institute, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and current open-source news reporting.

The news ticker aggregates headlines from 9+ live RSS feeds including NPR Politics, Politico, NBC News Politics, The New York Times Politics, Bloomberg Politics, House Speaker, Senate Democrats, and Democracy Docket. Headlines are refreshed hourly via the EIW server RSS proxy.

Items published within the last 2 hours containing election-related keywords are flagged as ⚡ BREAKING ELECTION NEWS and surfaced first in the ticker rotation.