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Methodology & Transparency

How We Source Our Data

SEAL SD Command's FORGE intelligence system is built on one rule: no opinion, only the documented record. Every accountability report traces to a primary source. Every claim is either verifiable or flagged as insufficient data. Here is exactly how it works.


Primary Sources

FORGE agents query primary sources directly — not news summaries, not Wikipedia, not third-party aggregators. The original documents are the record.

South Dakota Legislature — sdlegislature.gov

Voting records, bill sponsorships, co-sponsorships, committee assignments, and session history for all SD House and Senate members. Live-fetched during each FORGE run.

SD Secretary of State — vip.sdsos.gov / sdsos.gov

Official candidate filings, election results, campaign finance disclosures, and ballot access confirmations.

SD Legislative Audit Bureau

Official state audit findings for counties and state agencies. Audit violations, corrective action plans, and compliance history. Primary source for all county audit reporting on this site.

Custer County Commission Minutes — custercountysd.com

Official meeting minutes PDFs covering 2018–2026. Verbatim vote records, budget decisions, and commissioner positions sourced directly from county records.

County Chronicle and Local News Archives

Custer County Chronicle, Rapid City Journal, South Dakota Searchlight, and SDPB archives. Used for contemporaneous reporting, candidate statements, and forum coverage. Always identified as secondary source.

Official Campaign Materials

Candidate websites, official campaign social media, and public statements. Used for platform documentation. Archived at time of research.


How FORGE Works

When you run a candidate search, FORGE deploys four independent AI agents simultaneously — each assigned a specific research dimension:

1
Original Campaign AgentWhat they promised when they first ran. Platform statements, campaign website text, candidate forum transcripts, endorsement questionnaires.
2
In-Office Record AgentWhat actually happened during their term. Voting record, sponsored legislation, budget votes, committee decisions, public positions.
3
Current Platform AgentWhat they are promising right now. Current campaign website, recent statements, 2025-2026 positions on key issues.
4
Accountability SynthesisA fifth Claude Sonnet model reviews all three agents, calculates the delta between promises made and actions taken, and produces the final accountability grade with cited evidence.

Every item in the final report is categorized: DELIVERED, BROKEN, FLIPPED, DROPPED, or NEW. Each requires at least one cited primary source. If the evidence doesn't exist, the report says INSUFFICIENT DATA — not a fabricated answer.


Our Core Principles

I
No fabrication, ever.If a voting record cannot be verified, FORGE returns INSUFFICIENT DATA. We do not fill gaps with assumptions, common knowledge, or likely positions.
II
Primary source or nothing.Agents are instructed to reject secondary summaries and demand the original document. A news article describing a vote is not the vote — the legislative record is.
III
Non-partisan by design.SEAL SD Command researches any candidate of any party. The same methodology applies to every name entered. The record is the record regardless of affiliation.
IV
Transparent about limitations.AI systems make mistakes. Live data feeds can fail. Some records are not digitized. When data is unavailable, missing, or uncertain, we say so explicitly.
V
You verify, you decide.Every claim includes a citation so you can read the original source yourself. SEAL SD Command is a research accelerator — the judgment is yours.

Pre-Loaded Intelligence

We pre-loaded SEAL SD Command with verified intelligence on the candidates South Dakota voters are searching for most. This means when you type a name — a governor candidate, a Custer County commissioner, a District 30 legislator — FORGE already has the primary source record in hand before the agents run. You get faster results and fewer INSUFFICIENT DATA gaps because the research was done in advance.

What's pre-loaded: All 2026 South Dakota Governor race candidates, SD House and Senate District 30 members (Custer and Fall River counties), and current Custer County commissioners and judicial candidates. For these names, FORGE agents receive verified ground truth from the start — voting records, audit findings, platform statements, and public positions sourced from primary documents.

This database is updated as candidates file, platforms are published, and voting records are added to the record. Last update: April 2026. For candidates not yet in the database, FORGE still runs — it will return INSUFFICIENT DATA on any claim it cannot verify rather than fabricating an answer.


Report Concerns or Corrections

If you believe a FORGE report contains an error, a missing primary source, or a factual inaccuracy, contact us at [email protected]. Our AI research coordinator reviews every correction request against the primary source record. Verified errors are corrected. We do not correct reports simply because a subject disagrees with their documented record.

SEAL SD Command

Strengthen · Enhance · American · Liberty · South Dakota
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