Add codebook, methodology, and release policy

docs/codebook.md

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+# Codebook
+
+## Core identifiers
+
+- `case_id`: stable incident identifier, lowercase ASCII with hyphens.
+- `case_family_id`: groups related incidents and election-wide records.
+- `claim_id`, `source_id`, `event_id`, `watch_id`: stable table-specific identifiers.
+
+## Case status
+
+- `retrospective`: election or incident has concluded.
+- `ongoing`: observed events exist and the election or adjudication is still active.
+- `prospective_monitoring`: monitoring file without an implied incident.
+
+## Event and watchlist status
+
+- `events.event_status`: `observed` means the dated event is sourced as having occurred; `contested` means the event occurred but legality, attribution, deception, or significance remains unresolved; `prospective` is a future date or deadline and never implies occurrence.
+- `watchlist.status=active`: the defensive indicator is operational or has already been activated by an observed signal and remains under review.
+- `watchlist.status=prospective_monitoring`: the rule or risk window is defined, but no activating signal is implied.
+- `watchlist.status=closed`: monitoring for that indicator has ended; later evidence may still revise the record.
+- `monitoring_window`: the inclusive period or named trigger for intensive assessment. It is not necessarily the activation date; an indicator can be `active` before the window starts when an earlier observed signal already activated it.
+
+## Inclusion and case-level assessment
+
+- `anchor_case`: `true` means the row is a direct member or subfile of one of the five user-defined anchor families; `false` marks linked evidence kept as a supporting case rather than a separate anchor family.
+- `inclusion_tier`: `A` means the full claim-level corpus criteria are met: atomic claims, explicit provenance, a dated event record, counterevidence or uncertainty coding, and review. Comparative-candidate rows are not tiered.
+- `overall_confidence`: a reviewer synthesis of confidence in the case description and occurrence as worded. It is not an arithmetic average and does not express confidence in attribution, behavioural effect, or electoral effect; those conclusions remain governed by the atomic claims.
+
+## AI role
+
+- `core_generation`: AI generated or cloned the deceptive or persuasive content.
+- `material_amplification`: algorithmic ranking, bots, or automation materially distributed content.
+- `supporting_tool`: AI reduced cost or assisted production, targeting, translation, or analysis.
+- `detection_response`: AI is used mainly by defenders or institutions.
+- `none_established`: AI is alleged or discussed but not established in the incident.
+- `mixed`: multiple roles apply.
+
+## Generative-AI status
+
+- `confirmed`: supported by provenance, admission, forensic finding, or authoritative record.
+- `probable`: multiple indicators support generation, but provenance is incomplete.
+- `alleged`: a source alleges synthetic generation without sufficient independent verification.
+- `not_established`: no adequate evidence that the relevant content was generative AI.
+- `not_applicable`: the case concerns other algorithmic or coordinated mechanisms.
+
+## Occurrence and effect
+
+- `occurrence_status`: `confirmed`, `partly_confirmed`, `alleged`, or `not_observed`.
+- `reach_status`: `measured`, `platform_reported`, `estimated`, `qualitative`, or `unknown`.
+- `behavioural_effect_status`: `measured`, `indicated`, `not_detected`, or `unknown`.
+- `electoral_effect_status`: `measured`, `institutionally_asserted`, `not_detected`, or `unknown`.
+
+`institutionally_asserted` means an institution relied on or stated an effect in a formal process. It does not convert that assertion into a causal estimate.
+
+## Attribution status
+
+- `admitted`: the actor acknowledged the conduct.
+- `adjudicated`: a competent body reached a final finding relevant to attribution.
+- `officially_attributed`: a public authority attributed the conduct, without implying final adjudication.
+- `platform_attributed`: a platform or threat-intelligence report made the attribution.
+- `credibly_reported`: multiple high-quality independent sources identify the actor.
+- `alleged`: an interested or single source makes the attribution.
+- `unknown`: insufficient evidence.
+- `mixed`: different components have different attribution strength.
+
+## Mechanism classes
+
+Multiple values are separated by `|`:
+
+- `voice_clone`
+- `synthetic_video`
+- `synthetic_image`
+- `synthetic_text`
+- `recommender_amplification`
+- `coordinated_inauthentic_behaviour`
+- `bot_amplification`
+- `paid_influence`
+- `microtargeting`
+- `telecom_robocall`
+- `spoofed_media`
+- `illicit_finance`
+- `voter_suppression`
+- `institutional_response`
+- `liars_dividend`
+
+## Evidence labels
+
+See the dataset card. `confidence` must be a decimal from `0` to `1`. A claim marked `established_evidence` normally requires `confidence >= 0.8`; exceptions require a note.
+
+## Source roles
+
+- `primary_record`
+- `corroboration`
+- `context`
+- `counterevidence`
+- `methodology`
+- `ongoing_monitoring`
+
+## Delimiters and missingness
+
+- Multi-value fields use `|`.
+- Missing values are empty strings, not the literal strings `null`, `NA`, or `unknown` unless `unknown` is a defined category.
+- Human-readable summaries use full sentences; categorical fields use codebook values.
+
+## Comparative-candidate workflow
+
+`candidates` rows are not equivalent to included `cases` rows. `research_status` records the next research action, such as promotion after claim coding, boundary comparison, reserve, or a named second-source requirement. Candidate status vocabulary is intentionally workflow-oriented and may be more granular than the core case enums.
+
+Candidate `occurrence`, `attribution`, `reach`, `generative_ai`, and related categorical fields use provisional research codes and are not interchangeable with the core enums. Normalize every field before promotion to the included corpus.
+
+`source_urls` contains pipe-delimited exact links. A candidate normally requires at least two sources; a one-source record is permitted only when its `research_status` and `main_caveat` explicitly identify the missing corroboration and keep it in reserve.

docs/ethics-and-release.md

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+# Ethics and release
+
+## Harm minimisation
+
+This dataset is designed for democratic-integrity and agency research. It does not reproduce deceptive media, voter lists, targeting data, operational playbooks, or instructions that would make interference easier. Source URLs are retained for verification, but the dataset does not archive or redistribute copyrighted or harmful media.
+
+## Naming actors
+
+Public officials, candidates, organisations, and adjudicated or officially named actors may be identified when necessary for the research record. Private individuals are named only when already central to authoritative public proceedings. Attribution labels preserve the difference between admission, allegation, official assessment, and final adjudication.
+
+## Ongoing elections
+
+Publishing monitoring indicators during an election can itself create risk. Indicators are therefore defensive and aggregate: disclosure compliance, official complaints, verified synthetic-media incidents, coordinated-network takedowns, election-authority notices, and changes in platform response. The dataset excludes evasion tactics and targeting vulnerabilities.
+
+## Corrections
+
+Corrections should identify the affected record, provide supporting evidence, and preserve a changelog. The dataset is versioned so that retrospective revisions do not silently overwrite what was known at a given date.

docs/methodology.md

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+# Methodology
+
+## Research question
+
+When election-related influence systems move citizens from persuasion toward agency transfer, which actor gains control, through which technical and institutional pathway, and what evidence exists of democratic harm?
+
+## Unit of analysis
+
+The core unit is an incident or tightly bounded campaign. Related incidents can share a `case_family_id`. A whole election is used as the unit only when the institutional record itself concerns election-wide conditions, as in the annulment and repeat of Romania's presidential election.
+
+## Inclusion criteria
+
+A case is included when all of the following apply:
+
+1. It is materially connected to an election, referendum, voter participation, candidate choice, or confidence in electoral administration.
+2. It involves at least one mechanism in scope: synthetic media, generative AI, recommender or ranking systems, automated or coordinated amplification, bots, AI-assisted targeting, AI-enabled impersonation, or AI-supported detection and response.
+3. It has at least two credible independent sources, or one authoritative primary record plus sufficient corroboration.
+4. Its factual occurrence can be separated from interpretations of intent, attribution, reach, and effect.
+
+Prospective files may be included before an election only when they contain official rules, documented preparations, already observed incidents, and observable monitoring indicators. Scenarios alone are stored only in `watchlist` and labelled `speculative_scenario`.
+
+The `candidates` config is a research queue, not part of the included case corpus. It preserves comparative leads, boundary cases, reserves, exclusions, source links, and the principal reason a record has not yet been promoted into full claim-level coding.
+
+## Exclusion criteria
+
+- Generic political misinformation with no material automation, AI, algorithmic-distribution, or synthetic-media component.
+- Demonstrations or hypothetical content never deployed in an election context.
+- Claims supported only by anonymous reposts or unverifiable screenshots.
+- A political use of AI that is transparent, authorised, and lacks a plausible manipulation mechanism, unless retained as a labelled comparison or boundary case.
+- Unsupported claims that exposure, impressions, or virality changed votes.
+
+## Evidence workflow
+
+1. Build a source inventory, prioritising courts, election authorities, regulators, law enforcement, international election-observation missions, platform transparency reports, and peer-reviewed work.
+2. Atomise source statements into claims.
+3. Code each claim by type and epistemic status.
+4. Add independent corroboration and counterevidence.
+5. Separate the content creator, sponsor, distributor, platform, attributed state actor, and responding institution.
+6. Record the maximum conclusion warranted by the evidence, not the most dramatic interpretation.
+7. Re-verify links and ongoing-case status before each release.
+
+## Source quality
+
+`source_quality` is an ordinal assessment:
+
+- `A`: authoritative primary record or peer-reviewed study with directly relevant evidence.
+- `B`: high-quality independent reporting, established civil-society investigation, or transparent technical report.
+- `C`: interested-party or platform self-report, credible but incomplete secondary reporting, or source with material uncertainty.
+- `D`: lead only; not sufficient to support a published claim without corroboration.
+
+Source quality is not the same as truth. A regulator's allegation is an authoritative record that the allegation was made, but not necessarily proof that the alleged conduct occurred.
+
+## Claim model
+
+Claims are typed as `occurrence`, `mechanism`, `ai_role`, `reach`, `attribution`, `intent`, `behavioural_effect`, `electoral_effect`, `institutional_outcome`, `response`, `legal_status`, `counterevidence`, or `agency_transfer`.
+
+The wording controls the confidence score. For example:
+
+- “The FCC issued a $6 million forfeiture order” can be established by the order.
+- “The robocall changed votes” remains unknown without behavioural evidence.
+- “Moldovan authorities alleged that a foreign-funded network paid voters” is established as an official allegation; the underlying conduct and attribution require their own claims.
+
+## Agency-transfer model
+
+Each case is assessed along this path:
+
+`capability → controlling actor → influence vector → targeted population → affected state or capacity → agency transferred → power concentrated → democratic harm → mitigation`
+
+The affected state or capacity may be belief, preference, attention, trust, participation, autonomous deliberation, agenda-setting, or institutional discretion.
+
+## Ongoing cases
+
+Brazil and the United States in 2026 are versioned monitoring files. Dated events use:
+
+- `observed`: an event has occurred and is sourced.
+- `contested`: the event occurred but legality, attribution, deception, or significance is unresolved.
+- `prospective`: a future election, deadline, or meeting is recorded without implying occurrence.
+
+Watchlist indicators use a separate status vocabulary: `active` when an indicator is operational or activated by an observed signal, `prospective_monitoring` when only a rule/window exists, and `closed` after monitoring ends. `monitoring_window` is the intensive assessment interval or trigger and need not equal the initial activation date.
+
+Every prospective case file includes an `as_of_date`; event rows use `event_date`, and watchlist rows use `last_checked` plus `monitoring_window`. No forecast is silently converted into a fact.
+
+## Quality assurance
+
+- Referential integrity across case, claim, source, event, and watchlist identifiers.
+- Every direct claim-to-source use has a matching case-source link whose declared support types include that claim type.
+- No claim without at least one source or an explicit `open_question` status.
+- No electoral-effect claim inferred solely from reach.
+- No foreign attribution based solely on political statements.
+- Platform self-reports labelled as such.
+- Dates stored as ISO 8601.
+- URLs preserved as plain provenance fields; copyrighted source text is not reproduced.