Scope, acceptance, and electronic assent
"AFDES" means the American Foundation for Democratic Stability, Inc. and, where the context requires, its authorized directors, officers, employees, editors, volunteers, contractors, agents, and service providers. These Terms apply to AFDES.org, public-facing tools, publications, forms, interactive features, databases, data displays, and other web services made available through the site.
AFDES may revise these Terms as its services, legal obligations, or practices change. Material revisions will be identified by an updated effective date and, when appropriate in light of the nature of the change and the service involved, AFDES may provide additional notice before materially revised contractual terms take effect. Continued use after revised Terms become effective constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms only to the extent permitted by applicable law.
When an AFDES form, transaction, submission process, account feature, or other service expressly asks you to accept these Terms by checking a box, selecting an acceptance control, or taking another clearly identified affirmative action, that action constitutes your electronic assent to the version of the Terms presented at that time. AFDES may retain reasonable records of such assent, including the date, time, version, transaction or submission reference, and related audit information.
Informational and public-interest purpose
AFDES publishes and provides civic research, election information, public-opinion analysis, educational resources, commentary, institutional materials, public records, data visualizations, and related public-interest content. Unless expressly stated otherwise, website material is provided for informational, educational, research, and civic purposes only.
Nothing on AFDES.org constitutes legal, financial, investment, medical, security, tax, governmental, election-administration, or other professional advice, and no attorney-client, fiduciary, advisory, employment, agency, partnership, joint-venture, franchise, or similar professional or business relationship is created merely by use of the website.
No reliance and responsibility for decisions
You are responsible for evaluating whether information on AFDES.org is appropriate for your purposes and for independently verifying information before making a decision that may materially affect your legal rights, finances, safety, business, candidacy, voting activity, public statements, or other important interests. AFDES content should not be used as the sole basis for a time-sensitive or high-consequence decision when an authoritative, licensed, professional, or official source is reasonably available.
Your use of, or reliance on, website content, analytical outputs, maps, datasets, visualizations, summaries, or third-party information is at your own judgment and risk, subject to rights and remedies that cannot lawfully be waived.
Election information, public-opinion data, and analytical tools
Election results, demographic information, polling or survey data, statistical outputs, maps, charts, forecasts, public records, and analytical tools may rely on third-party providers, official sources, research datasets, estimates, provisional data, historical records, transformations, or automated processing. Such information may be revised, delayed, incomplete, subject to sampling or methodological limitations, or later corrected by the original source.
AFDES data displays are not official certification of an election, a substitute for an election authority, or a guarantee of any legal, political, financial, or operational outcome. Material identified as simulated, test, historical, preliminary, demonstration, or provider-preview data must not be represented by a user as current official data.
Service availability, data integrity, and technical limitations
AFDES may modify, suspend, limit, discontinue, correct, or replace website features or content without guaranteeing continuous availability. Data feeds, APIs, hosting services, databases, networks, email systems, payment providers, election-data providers, browsers, devices, and other dependencies may experience delay, outage, corruption, incompatibility, security events, or other failures outside AFDES's reasonable control.
AFDES does not guarantee real-time delivery, uninterrupted access, preservation of every historical display, compatibility with every device, or that a third-party provider will continue supplying a particular service or dataset.
AI-assisted material, illustrations, and visual content
AFDES may use artificial intelligence, automated tools, illustrations, composites, reconstructions, diagrams, enhanced images, or other non-documentary visual techniques in editorial and research production. Unless expressly identified as documentary evidence, such material should be understood as editorial or illustrative content and not as proof that a depicted event, scene, person, object, or circumstance occurred exactly as shown.
Users are responsible for reading captions, credits, labels, article notes, methodology, and other context accompanying visual or AI-assisted material. Additional standards concerning AI, visual integrity, and documentary photography are stated in the Editorial Policy.
Intellectual property and permitted use
To the extent protected by applicable law, AFDES owns or licenses the website's original text, editorial selection, research products, software, design, graphics, trademarks, logos, data organization, and other proprietary materials. Some materials may be public domain, third-party licensed, quoted or used under applicable law, or created with automated or AI-assisted tools; those materials retain their applicable legal status.
You may link to public AFDES pages and quote reasonable excerpts for criticism, commentary, education, scholarship, reporting, or reference when the use is lawful and includes clear attribution. Except as permitted by law or authorized in writing, you may not reproduce, republish, sell, systematically archive, scrape, redistribute, modify, or create commercial substitutes from substantial portions of AFDES content or databases.
Copyright and content-rights complaints
A person who believes material appearing on AFDES.org infringes a copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other legally protected right may submit a complaint through the AFDES contact page. The complaint should identify the protected work or right, the specific AFDES material and page at issue, the basis for the claim, the complainant's contact information, and any supporting documentation reasonably available.
AFDES may request additional information, temporarily restrict access to disputed material, correct attribution, remove or replace material, or decline a request after review, depending on the circumstances and applicable law. AFDES's decision to review, modify, restrict, or remove content does not by itself constitute an admission of infringement, fault, or legal liability.
This provision is a general content-complaint procedure. It does not represent that AFDES has designated a statutory agent or elected a particular legal safe-harbor regime unless AFDES separately completes the applicable legal requirements.
Prohibited conduct
You may not use AFDES.org to engage in conduct that:
- violates applicable law, infringes intellectual-property, privacy, publicity, confidentiality, or other rights, or facilitates unlawful activity;
- attempts to gain unauthorized access to accounts, administrative areas, databases, servers, credentials, source code, restricted files, or security controls;
- introduces malware, malicious code, automated abuse, denial-of-service activity, credential attacks, deceptive traffic, or other activity intended to disrupt or compromise systems;
- uses scraping, harvesting, or automated extraction in a manner that materially burdens the site, circumvents technical controls, or violates these Terms;
- impersonates AFDES or another person, falsifies affiliation, or materially misrepresents AFDES content, authorship, data, conclusions, images, or institutional positions; or
- interferes with the security, integrity, availability, or normal operation of the website or its users.
Submissions, contributor material, and communications
If you submit an article, research material, correction request, message, document, photograph, image, dataset, idea, feedback, or other content, you represent that you have the lawful right to provide it and that its submission and authorized use do not knowingly infringe another person's copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, contractual, confidentiality, or other legal rights.
Do not submit privileged, classified, unlawfully obtained, highly sensitive, or confidential third-party material through ordinary website channels unless AFDES has expressly agreed to receive it through an appropriate method. You remain responsible for information you choose to submit.
Unless different written terms are agreed in advance, submission of material gives AFDES a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to review, reproduce, edit, format, store, and, if accepted for publication, publish, display, archive, and distribute the submitted material for AFDES editorial, educational, research, and archival purposes. Submission does not guarantee review, publication, response, endorsement, attribution, or compensation.
Third-party content, data, and services
AFDES may link to, embed, cite, integrate with, or rely on third-party websites, payment providers, government systems, election-data providers, academic resources, video platforms, social-media services, maps, APIs, software, or datasets. A link, citation, integration, or reference does not necessarily constitute endorsement. Third-party services are controlled by their operators and may be subject to separate terms, privacy policies, licenses, availability, accuracy, and security practices.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, AFDES is not responsible for losses caused by a third party's acts, omissions, content changes, service interruption, data errors, security practices, account decisions, or failure to perform its own obligations.
Contributions and payment processing
When contributions are available, payment transactions are completed through authorized third-party payment services. AFDES may receive transaction and donor records necessary for acknowledgment, accounting, reconciliation, refunds, compliance, and stewardship. AFDES.org is not intended to collect or store full payment-card numbers or CVV security codes.
A contribution is not represented as tax deductible unless AFDES expressly states that treatment based on its legal status and applicable law at the time of the contribution. Nothing on the website is a guarantee of tax treatment, and donors should consult their own advisers when appropriate. Payment-provider terms, restrictions, processing decisions, delays, and refund mechanics may also apply.
Editorial content, corrections, and institutional positions
AFDES may publish factual resources, research, analysis, commentary, contributor work, and institutional statements. Signed commentary or analysis may reflect the author's judgment and does not necessarily represent an institutional position of AFDES. Editorial standards, corrections, sourcing, and use of AI-assisted tools are addressed in the Editorial Policy.
The Editorial Policy describes standards AFDES seeks to follow; it is not a warranty that every publication will be error-free and, except where applicable law provides otherwise, does not create a separate private contractual right or cause of action.
Privacy and security
Collection and handling of personal information are addressed in the Privacy Policy. No internet service, server, database, network, email system, or transmission method can be guaranteed completely secure, and users should use reasonable care when deciding what information to submit electronically.
Disclaimer of warranties
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, AFDES.org and all content, data, software, services, publications, visual materials, analytical outputs, links, and other materials made available through it are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties or guarantees of any kind.
AFDES disclaims, to the fullest extent permitted by law, all express and implied warranties, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, currency, reliability, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, availability, security, and uninterrupted or error-free operation. AFDES does not warrant that information will remain current, that third-party services will remain available, that defects will always be corrected, or that the website will be free from harmful components or security vulnerabilities.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, AFDES and its directors, officers, employees, editors, contributors, volunteers, contractors, agents, and authorized representatives will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, punitive, or similar damages; lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, loss of goodwill, business interruption, or loss of opportunity; or damages arising from reliance on website content, analytical outputs, visual material, data errors, delayed or unavailable feeds, service interruptions, third-party services, cyber incidents beyond reasonable control, or use or inability to use the website.
Where applicable law does not permit a particular exclusion or limitation, that exclusion or limitation will apply only to the maximum extent permitted by law. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.
Indemnification
To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless AFDES and its directors, officers, employees, agents, and authorized representatives from third-party claims, liabilities, losses, damages, judgments, and reasonable costs, including reasonable legal fees, arising from your unlawful use of the website, your material breach of these Terms, your infringement or misappropriation of another person's rights, or content you submit or cause to be published in violation of applicable law or your representations to AFDES.
This provision does not require you to indemnify any person for liability that applicable law prohibits from being shifted or for that person's own conduct to the extent such liability cannot lawfully be transferred.
Events beyond reasonable control
To the fullest extent permitted by law, AFDES will not be responsible for delay, interruption, corruption, unavailability, or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including natural disasters, severe weather, war, terrorism, civil disorder, labor disruption, government action, utility or telecommunications failure, cyberattack, internet outage, hosting failure, provider outage, data-source failure, or similar events.
Suspension, preservation, and enforcement
AFDES may restrict or terminate access to website features, reject submissions, block abusive traffic, preserve records or evidence, cooperate with lawful process, or take other reasonable measures when necessary to protect the website, enforce these Terms, comply with law, investigate suspected misuse, or protect users and third parties.
Governing law and jurisdiction
Except to the extent that non-waivable law requires otherwise, these Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Maryland, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. To the extent enforceable, disputes arising from these Terms or use of AFDES.org shall be brought in a state or federal court of competent jurisdiction located in Maryland, and the parties consent to the jurisdiction of those courts.
General provisions
If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum lawful extent and the remaining provisions will remain in effect. Failure by AFDES to enforce a provision is not a waiver of that provision or of the right to enforce it later.
You may not assign rights or obligations arising from these Terms in a manner that materially affects AFDES without AFDES's written consent. AFDES may assign or transfer its rights and obligations as part of a lawful reorganization, merger, transfer of operations, or similar transaction. These Terms do not create rights in a third party who is not a party to them except where applicable law expressly provides otherwise.
Provisions that by their nature should survive termination or cessation of use—including intellectual-property provisions, submission licenses, disclaimers, limitations of liability, indemnification, governing law, and general provisions—will survive to the extent permitted by law. These Terms, together with policies and specific notices incorporated by reference, constitute the applicable agreement concerning use of the website unless AFDES and the user enter into a separate written agreement governing a particular service.
Notices and legal communications
AFDES may provide website-related notices by posting them on AFDES.org, displaying them within the relevant service, or sending them to contact information a user has voluntarily provided, as appropriate to the circumstances and applicable law.
General questions, complaints, rights notices, and requests may be submitted through the AFDES contact page. Submission through an ordinary website contact form does not by itself constitute formal service of legal process, waiver of any defense, or consent to a method of service not otherwise authorized by applicable law.
Contact
Questions concerning these Terms may be submitted through the AFDES contact page.
Organization: American Foundation for Democratic Stability, Inc.