About BallotWise

BallotWise is a website and civic engagement tool designed to empower undecided voters by helping users create a personalized voting guide, based on the voting records of the candidates on their ballots.

Enter Your Address

BallotWise will use your address to find all races occurring in your area. Make sure to use the address at which you are registered to vote. BallotWise will not sell or otherwise monetize your personal information, including your address and any choices you make on the site.

How To Use BallotWise

Meet Your Candidates

BallotWise does your research for you, and provides nonpartisan information on the actions of your candidates on ten key issues. We cover candidates from White House to State House. 

Make Your Choices

While meeting your candidates, you can mark the candidates for whom you intend to vote, and why. Your choices will be saved in a filled-out sample ballot, which you can print to take with you to the voting booth, and even share with others.

Our Mission

Transparency

We unveil the voting records of candidates on crucial legislation, offering a clear view of their stances across all levels of government. With BallotWise, transparency fuels an informed electorate.

Accountability

By spotlighting legislative actions, we empower citizens to hold elected officials accountable. BallotWise ensures that leaders represent the true values and needs of their constituents.

Engagement

BallotWise equips voters with the knowledge and tools to create personalized voting plans. Informed decisions lead to impactful actions that shape the future of our democracy.

Our Methodology

BallotWise uses a fair, non-partisan approach to display bills. We rely on Times/Siena polling to identify the ten most important issues for the election.

Selection Factors:

  1. Indication of Position

  2. Impact of Action

  3. Contentiousness

  4. Cosponsors or News Coverage

To provide information on legislators running for office, we select the most important bill their chamber has considered in the last four years, for each of ten issues. For former government executives, our selection method is tailored to their position. All selections are based on the provided list of factors. For more information, download the full paper on our methodology here:

Our Team

  • Lauren Perl

    Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director

    History and Literature, Harvard University

  • Logan Delavan-Hoover

    Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director

    Economics, University of Maryland

  • Ayyub Abdulrezak

    Co-Founder, Chief Technical Officer

    Computer Science, MIT

  • Corey Norman

    National Software Team

    Master of Science in Computer Science, University of North Florida

  • Vaishnavi Banda

    National Software Team

    Computer Science, University of Maryland

  • Jason Zhang

    National Outreach and Design Teams, Social Media

    Computer Science, University of Michigan

  • Julia Crafton

    National Outreach and Design Teams

    Dramatic Writing, NYU

  • Francesca Rodriguez

    National Outreach Team

    International Political Economy, Georgetown University

  • Elizabeth Wang

    National User Experience Team

    UI/UX Design, Carnegie Mellon University

  • Ethan Jasny

    Data and Policy Consultant

    Government and Statistics, Harvard University

  • Mandy Zhang

    National Outreach Team

    Government and Economics, Harvard University

  • Cynthia Medina

    National Data Team

    Ethics, Politics, and Economics, Yale University

  • Mia Spruill

    National Data Team

    IB program, Princess Anne High School

With thanks to the brilliant young democracy defenders who helped us in the early stages of development:

Owen Grossman, Kayla Drake, Christine Regan, and Ryan Li

Disclaimers

BallotWise gathers information from the VoteSmart API and publicly available vote roll call data from legislative bodies to provide users with factual insights. While we strive to ensure accuracy, BallotWise cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies or discrepancies in the data, as we rely on third-party sources for this information.

Currently, we are unable to display voting records for Washington, D.C., as local political records are not as readily accessible as state and federal data. We’re actively exploring solutions to improve access to local voting information.