Hey HN. I'm Zaid, currently a student at university. When I tried to work out my ballot choices this cycle, I could not find a single place that showed me who was running, where they stand on issues, and who funds them.
Enter a zip, town, or select your state/district on the map and it shows each House and Senate race: who has filed, each candidate's priorities as written on their own site, campaign money, PAC and outside spending, and how incumbents voted. Everything traces back to the candidates' own website, a filing, roll call, or poll. Nothing is scored, ranked, or endorsed. I worked to keep my own judgement out of it.
I would like any and all feedback, though specifically:
- PAC categories. I am working on labeled "causes" or "industries" for PACs (Pro-Israel, Crypto, Gambling, etc.), since donor names/a long list of PACS alone doesn't tell people much. The concern I had is any label is a judgment call, which cuts against my rule of keeping my opinions out. My plan is a documented, mostly automated process (published step by step, little hand-labeling). Is that enough, or should I skip categories entirely? If I keep them, how would you show them without implying a verdict? - No issue by issue comparison. When I originally envisioned the site, I had thought to have sliders as to where you stand on certain issues and then you are "matched" with candidates relative to how similar your views are. I elected to forgo this idea as I did not want to decide what issues were important, I did not want to sort candidates' issues into my own buckets, and I did not want people to completely write off a candidate over a single disagreement on a certain issue. The side by side view still shows issues that the candidates posted but in their own order from their websites. - General UI/UX, especially on mobile. I feel that it could be information overload. I want to target people of all political understanding and so I would like to not overload people that don't keep up with politics while allowing for those that keep up to dig to their heart's content.
A tool like this would have been more useful over the summer, when the primaries were being held. Those are multi-way elections, with candidates holding a diversity of opinions. That is your best opportunity to sway policy.
By the time it reaches the general election, those policies are set. Regardless of what your candidate believes, they are going to vote with the party practically all of the time. Your chance to inform the party platform was during the primaries.
Honestly, the most important vote they cast is the first one, for Majority Leader/House Speaker. That determines the entire agenda for the next two years. If they lose that, nothing else they believe matters, because it won't come up for a vote.
Thanks for writing this, and it's useful to give it a test run now. But it'll really become useful around January 2028, when primaries ramp up.
Hey HN. I'm Zaid, currently a student at university. When I tried to work out my ballot choices this cycle, I could not find a single place that showed me who was running, where they stand on issues, and who funds them.
Enter a zip, town, or select your state/district on the map and it shows each House and Senate race: who has filed, each candidate's priorities as written on their own site, campaign money, PAC and outside spending, and how incumbents voted. Everything traces back to the candidates' own website, a filing, roll call, or poll. Nothing is scored, ranked, or endorsed. I worked to keep my own judgement out of it.
I would like any and all feedback, though specifically:
- PAC categories. I am working on labeled "causes" or "industries" for PACs (Pro-Israel, Crypto, Gambling, etc.), since donor names/a long list of PACS alone doesn't tell people much. The concern I had is any label is a judgment call, which cuts against my rule of keeping my opinions out. My plan is a documented, mostly automated process (published step by step, little hand-labeling). Is that enough, or should I skip categories entirely? If I keep them, how would you show them without implying a verdict? - No issue by issue comparison. When I originally envisioned the site, I had thought to have sliders as to where you stand on certain issues and then you are "matched" with candidates relative to how similar your views are. I elected to forgo this idea as I did not want to decide what issues were important, I did not want to sort candidates' issues into my own buckets, and I did not want people to completely write off a candidate over a single disagreement on a certain issue. The side by side view still shows issues that the candidates posted but in their own order from their websites. - General UI/UX, especially on mobile. I feel that it could be information overload. I want to target people of all political understanding and so I would like to not overload people that don't keep up with politics while allowing for those that keep up to dig to their heart's content.
Thanks for any and all feedback
A tool like this would have been more useful over the summer, when the primaries were being held. Those are multi-way elections, with candidates holding a diversity of opinions. That is your best opportunity to sway policy.
By the time it reaches the general election, those policies are set. Regardless of what your candidate believes, they are going to vote with the party practically all of the time. Your chance to inform the party platform was during the primaries.
Honestly, the most important vote they cast is the first one, for Majority Leader/House Speaker. That determines the entire agenda for the next two years. If they lose that, nothing else they believe matters, because it won't come up for a vote.
Thanks for writing this, and it's useful to give it a test run now. But it'll really become useful around January 2028, when primaries ramp up.