Where our information comes from

Real records, with links. Nothing is guessed: if a source doesn't have something, the app says so.

Votes and records

How members of Congress voted: official roll calls from Voteview (UCLA), which compiles the records of the House Clerk and the Senate. "Votes with their party" is worked out from the same votes. Votes in the app link to their record.
Bills: Congress.gov, including the Congressional Research Service's summaries.
The questions you answer: each one is a real roll call. Its background comes from the official record (House Clerk, Senate, Congress.gov, GovInfo, the Congressional Budget Office), what members on both sides said, and reporting such as NPR, the ACLU and the Brennan Center. Each question's own links are under "What was this vote?", then "Sources".
The Supreme Court: how each justice voted comes from the Supreme Court Database (terms 1946 to 2024). The Court's opinions and dockets come from supremecourt.gov.
Landmark cases: written by us from the opinion, Oyez, Justia, Cornell's Legal Information Institute, SCOTUSblog and reporting such as NPR. Cases decided after 2024 aren't in the database yet, so we check those by hand against the opinion and the docket. Which earlier decisions a case overruled, and which laws it struck down, were checked against the Library of Congress's Constitution Annotated. Each case's own links are under "What happened", then "Sources".

Your ballot and districts

Address lookup: address suggestions come from Google. Your districts come from the U.S. Census Bureau geocoder and its TIGERweb maps, for today's lines and the new 2026 maps. The House's own ZIP lookup is also used.
Which states have new 2026 maps: the U.S. Census Bureau's list.
District facts: the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, 5-year figures for 2020 to 2024, by today's congressional district.
Your officials: members of Congress from Congress.gov. State legislators from Open States (Plural Policy). In New York, state and county districts and legislators also come from New York State GIS and county offices.
Election dates: New York's come from the New York State Board of Elections. Nov. 3, 2026 is set by federal law (2 U.S.C. § 7). Later elections come from each state's election calendar; where a state hasn't published one yet, the date is worked out from state law and the app says so.
Registration deadlines: Vote.gov, in its own words, or, for some states, the state's own 2026 notice (for example, the Texas Secretary of State's).
Where and how to vote: polling places and local races from the Google Civic Information API, which uses information from state election offices (the Voting Information Project). ID, mail and early voting rules from USA.gov.
Who's running: Ballotpedia, and Wikipedia when Ballotpedia has nothing.
Ballot measures: Ballotpedia. Their titles and descriptions are Ballotpedia's text, shown unchanged, with a link to the page they come from.
Topics (the topics you pick, and what each question is about): the issues voters named in Pew Research Center's July 2026 survey.
Vote weight: certified results. New York's races from the New York State Board of Elections. House races in other states, and each state's vote for president, from Ballotpedia's pages of certified results. The national vote for president from the Federal Election Commission. Each race's own figures are under "See the math", then "Sources".

Text copied from Ballotpedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.3, the same terms Ballotpedia uses. You may copy it on those terms. Names, parties and vote counts are facts, not Ballotpedia's text.

What's written by AI

Two things, both written by Google's Gemini and both labeled in the app:

Short summaries of what a candidate or official says on their own website ("Summarized by AI from their website", with a link to the site).
One-line summaries of what a Supreme Court dissent argued ("Summarized by AI from the dissent"), from the dissent's own text as published by Cornell's Legal Information Institute.

Each summary is kept only if its numbers and most of its words are in the text it summarizes. Everything else, including the questions and the Supreme Court headlines, is written by us from the sources above.

What comes from people using the app

Area totals ("how your neighbors answered") and community posts come only from people using this app. They are not a poll.

Photos

Members of Congress: official photos from the Government Publishing Office (public domain), stored on this site.
Supreme Court justices: official portraits by the Court's photographers (public domain), stored on this site.
Candidates: from Ballotpedia.

Who runs this, and who pays

The Modern Voter is built and paid for by its creator. It has no outside funding and no ads, and it's run as cheaply as possible. How we handle your information is in the Privacy Policy.

Always check with your local election office before you vote. If something in the app looks wrong, tap "Report a problem" at the bottom of any page.