San Diego County · General election24 days to goregister by Oct 19

San Diego County · General election · Tuesday, November 3, 2026

What's on your ballot, San Diego.

Every measure in the county, in plain language: what a YES does, what a NO does, what it costs, and who is on each side. Nothing here tells you how to vote. Every item links to the official document it came from.

Oct 4

Drop boxes open

Oct 5

Ballots mailed to every registered voter

Oct 19

Registration deadline (same-day registration after)

Oct 24

First vote centers open, 8am–5pm

Oct 31

All vote centers open

Nov 3

Election Day, 7am–8pm

Not sure how you lean? Three questions for every measure, answered on your own device. A lean comes back — YES, NO or split — and it is yours, not ours.

Find where you stand

Ballot for

Other ballots: Orange County · Los Angeles County · San Francisco · New York City · Washington, D.C. · Alexandria · Arlington County · Fairfax County · Loudoun County · Prince William County

Show my city

Everyone in the county

Two county measures

Both appear on every ballot in San Diego County.

By city

City measures

Seven measures in six cities. Pick your city above to see only yours.

By school district

Nine school and college bonds

Bonds need 55% to pass and are repaid through property taxes. The "likely areas" line is a guide; your sample ballot is the final word.

Special districts

Three measures for specific neighborhoods

Statewide · everyone in California

Fourteen propositions

Wording for YES and NO is the Secretary of State's. Supporters and opponents are the ones listed in the official guide.

Who's running

The people on your ballot

Statewide and county seats appear for everyone. City seats appear for your city. Congressional and legislative districts depend on your address; look up your sample ballot to see yours.

School boards, community college boards, water, fire and healthcare districts, and community planning groups are also on the ballot. The Registrar's candidate list (PDF) has every one of them.

How to vote

Three ways, one deadline

Mail it

Postmarked by Nov 3. Close to Election Day, use a drop box instead; a late postmark means the ballot is rejected.

Drop it

150+ drop boxes, open now through 8pm Nov 3. Find one.

Vote in person

Some vote centers open Oct 24, all open Oct 31, 8am–5pm; 7am–8pm on Nov 3. Find one.

✓

Track it

Where's My Ballot texts or emails you when your ballot is mailed, received and counted. Not registered? Register by Oct 19, or same-day at any vote center.

Why we made this

Keep your whole ballot in one place.

This page is the public version. Inside WayVote, each measure is a card you can decide on, your school district is found from your address so the right bonds appear, and for the props the Legislature put on your ballot you can see the roll-call where your own Assemblymember and Senator voted to send it to you. Your choices are saved. After the count, you'll see how your county agreed with you.

Every measure, decided or not, in the county's own ballot order
Candidates with a voting record, scored against your own positions
A plan you can carry to the vote center
No endorsements. Ever.

Join the San Diego beta See your official sample ballot

Additions23 Oct — Orange County, Los Angeles County, San Francisco, New York City, Washington, D.C., Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William. 16 Oct — San Diego County.

Shipping for Nov 3

Match your ballot

The candidates on your actual ballot, compared with where you stand — scored where a candidate has a public voting record, and shown in their own words where they don't. Your record becomes a decision on election day.

San Diego County · Supervisor, District 4

Monica Montgomery Steppe (incumbent)Kristine Alessio

For each candidate: a comparison where a public voting record exists, their own statement where it doesn't, and the official source either way. WayVote never ranks or recommends.

Record on fileTheir own words

A race from the November ballot. Which candidates carry a record is decided by the record, not by us.

Why it matters

The night before an election, most people are deciding on names they have never researched, from a mailer they didn't ask for. Ballot Match turns the record you've been keeping all year into the one thing it was for: a decision you can defend, on the day it counts.

Where it leads

A challenger with no votes is never scored on a guess — you see what they have said, and that it is only what they have said. Decide on the measures and races as you read, carry the plan to the vote center, and after the count see how your county agreed with you.

Try the three-question version now

Your record

Vote on real bills

Federal, state, county and city. Every bill is a card: what it does in plain language, a breakdown, and a vote. Your record starts here — and everything else on WayVote is built from it.

Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.

Henry David Thoreau, 1849

Live in the beta

Real bills, one at a time

Real legislation, newest first, five cards at a time. Read it in plain words, see what it costs and who it touches, ask anything about it, and decide.

County Measure A · San Diego County

Transparent, Accountable, Modern County Government

Charter changes: supervisor term limits 2 → 3 terms, an ethics commission, an independent budget analyst and program auditor, all county spending posted online.

What it doesBreakdownDive deeper

A card from the feed. A vote is sealed in only after you tap to confirm. Dive Deeper answers from the bill itself, never from anyone's opinion of it.

Why it matters

A country runs on thousands of votes a year that nobody outside the chamber reads. Here you read them, one at a time, and your answer goes on a record that is yours — the first running account most people have ever kept of what they actually believe, bill by bill, not slogan by slogan.

Where it leads

A citizen's record has to exist before anyone can be measured against it. Once it does, every other door in WayVote opens from it. And when enough people in a place keep one, a district knows its own mind before anyone polls it.

Live in the beta

Bill Breakdown

A bill taken apart provision by provision — what changes, who is affected, what it costs — with a few quick questions so you can lean on each part, not just yes or no.

County Measure B · Health and Safety Services sales tax

What changes

The countywide sales tax rises from 7.75% to 8.25%. A special fund pays for health care access, child care, food assistance, Tijuana River Valley sewage cleanup, wildfire prevention and emergency response.

Rate · +0.5¢ per $1Revenue · $400–450M / yr

Who is on each side

Listed as named in the official ballot arguments — and only there.

From the November ballot. The figures are the measure's own.

Why it matters

Almost no bill is one thing. The breakdown is where you discover you support the goal and oppose the clause — and where your record becomes precise enough to mean something. Yes-or-no is a slogan's resolution. This is a citizen's.

Where it leads

When a district can say "we want the funding and not the tax," an official hears something no poll has ever told them. Amber is the color of this room inside the app, and it appears nowhere else — so you always know when you are reading the fine print.

Shipping

Forty swipes to a first shape

Leanings: forty cards, one for every corner of public life, each with its two poles and an example position. Swipe toward the side you lean to; how far is how strongly.

Leanings · 12 of 40 · Housing

Market-driven housingPublicly supported housing

◀ lean leftskiplean right ▶

One card of forty. Every swipe is yours to change the moment a real bill proves you wrong.

Why it matters

It is the first thing after you sign up, so your Civic DNA has a shape on day one instead of a blank. A flat first radar teaches nothing; forty quick swipes give it a shape your votes then correct.

Where it leads

Most people have never been asked where they stand on forty things at once. Leanings is the first honest answer you give yourself — before anyone else answers for you.

Shipping

Take your bearings

The deeper read. For every topic: how much you care, where you stand, and how sure you are — then the comparison against every officeholder who represents you, at every level, in one pass.

Bearings · Criminal justice

How much you care

Where you stand

Enforcement & punishmentReform & rehabilitation

How sure

Three readings per topic. Congress, the statehouse, the county, the council, the school board — compared in one pass.

Why it matters

Caring and standing are different things. You can hold a firm view on something you rarely think about, and an uncertain one on the thing that keeps you up at night. Bearings keeps the two apart, which is the only way a comparison with an official is ever fair.

Where it leads

Every level at once. The person who has never known the name of their county supervisor finds out, in one sitting, how close that supervisor actually is to them.

Live in the beta

Different doors, one record

The Atlas, The Current State, If You Ran Congress, How Would You Run California?, Code Red, Extra Credit, Find Your Civic Voice — and more as the record grows. Each is a different way to say where you stand before the record says it for you.

Live

The Atlas

The map of positions: ten parts across the whole of public life, unlocked in order so the map fills in from the edges.

Live

The Current State

What is live right now — the questions of this session, answered before the vote is taken.

Live

If You Ran Congress

Sit in the chair. The same trade-offs, the same votes — decided by you.

Every questionnaire answer is evidence you supplied. Only your own answers and votes can ever move your Civic DNA — nothing a representative says, pays for, or publishes can.

Planned

Happening now

Floor votes as they happen, with your own vote cast beside them. Your line and theirs land in your history on the same bill, at the same hour.

Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.

Abraham Lincoln, Ottawa, 1858

Happening Now is planned for when the live roll-call feed is dependable enough that no vote is ever shown as live that isn't. Until then, it says so.

Why it matters

The moment a vote is being taken is the moment people most want to be counted — and the moment they are usually furthest from being heard.

Where it leads

Government in real time: a district that answers the question while the chamber is still asking it.

Where you stand, and who stands with you

Find your alignment

Your Civic DNA. Your alignment with the people who vote in your name. The citizen who votes like you. The public figures you would never have guessed you agree with.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 1855

Live in the beta

Know your Civic DNA

Your positions as a living radar across thirty-eight categories and a hundred and ninety-two subcategories. It fills in as you vote and answer, and it is yours alone: nobody else's shape is drawn on it.

The ring. Turn it; whatever reaches the top is what WayVote is reading. Illustrative values.

Why it matters

You are not a party. You contain multitudes — the person who wants both a safer border and a cleaner river, both lower taxes and a better school. Civic DNA is the first picture of that person most of us have ever seen. It gives the quiet majority of complicated people a way to recognize themselves.

Where it leads

And to be recognized. Every comparison on WayVote — with an official, a public figure, a neighbor — is a comparison of shapes, not labels. The label was never the point.

Live in the beta

One number. Both directions

One number between you and each person who votes in your name — from the real record, topic by topic, with the votes that prove it. Ninety is remarkable, and the page feels like it.

—%

You ⇄ your representative · example

Housing94

Transit91

Education82

Healthcare61

Taxation44

The format. Values are illustrative, not a real score.

Why it matters

Not "do I like them." Do they vote the way I would have — on housing, on the school down the street, on the bill they never mentioned at the town hall? Alignment is where loyalty stops being a habit and becomes a choice you can defend: true alignment, found through the issues that matter to you, not the ones you were told to care about.

Where it leads

It runs both ways. An official can see, for the first time, how closely they are actually representing the people who sent them — and the number can only be moved by what you do and what they do. Nothing anyone says, pays for, or publishes can touch it.

Live in the beta · fills as people join

Discover your Civic Twin

When someone else's Civic DNA matches yours at ninety percent or more, they are your Civic Twin. Shown to each other only after both of you say yes.

Two strands — you and your twin — joined on every bill you both decided. The rungs facing you are the votes you share.

The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.

Jane Addams, 1892

Why it matters

Think about how rare it is. Most people go their whole lives without meeting someone who sees the world the way they do on the things that matter — not the same party, the same decisions, bill after bill. Ninety percent is rare, and when it happens it should feel like it.

Where it leads

From one twin, a group. From a group, a voice an official can actually hear — as a whole, never as a list of names. This is how movements begin: not with a slogan, but with two people who discover they already agree. No outrage feed, no algorithm deciding who you meet.

Live in the beta

Match yourself to the Capitol

Where you land among public figures and officeholders across government — not only your own representatives — scored against your own answers. Not who you like; who you actually agree with.

Capitol Match

You ⇄ figure

Every figure is compared on the same questions you answer. Where a figure has a voting record, it counts; where they only have positions, the comparison says so. Answer as many as you want and stop whenever you like.

Record on filePositions only

Names appear once you've answered. Nothing is scored before you do.

Why it matters

Most people meet the record for the first time here, and most are surprised. The figure you were told to dislike agrees with you on four things. The one you cheer for, on two. It is a game with real rules, and it is where the habit of checking begins.

Your First Term, kept apart

Beside the match sits a separate ledger: a figure's record over their first term against what they ran on. Never folded into the match, so one never colors the other.

Planned · a promise

A district that can see itself

How your district, city, state and country voted on each bill. Never individualized. Never shown below thirty people. Opt-in, and one flag in Settings governs every aggregate use.

The floor · thirty people before anything is shown

Below thirty, a view does not exist — not calculated and hidden, never calculated. At thirty, it lights.

The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures… but always most in the common people.

Walt Whitman, preface to Leaves of Grass, 1855

Community sentiment arrives when enough people in a place have voted on the record to show a whole without showing anyone. That threshold is not a setting, and it will not be lowered to make the beta look busier.

The other side of the veil

Say versus vote

Clarity and transparency, and the simplest test in public life: did they do what they said? What an official says, held next to how they voted — and the two channels that make the record honest in both directions.

Well done is better than well said.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1737

Live in the beta

Said. Voted

A representative's public statements held next to their actual votes, topic by topic, as a running consistency gap: kept their word, or said one thing and did another.

Said · Voted · by topic

Housingsaid

voted

Transitsaid

voted

The format: the gap between the two bars is the finding. Values illustrative.

Why it matters

Everyone says things. The record shows what they did. Held side by side, follow-through becomes visible — and so does its absence — without anyone having to call anyone a liar. For an official who means what they say, this is the best thing that ever happened to them: proof.

Where it leads

A statement, once made on WayVote, is dated and never edited. Change your mind and both stay on the record. Where there is not enough on either side to compare, nothing is shown: a missing number is a sentence, not a guess.

The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.

Ida B. Wells, 1892

In progress

Hear every perspective

On each bill: a representative's stated view and an organization's, each with its source, and the bill's co-sponsors. Never an endorsement from us — the sides, with their names on them.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

Every perspective will carry a source, a date, and — where it was paid for — a plain "paid for by" line from the public filing.

Why it matters

The loudest voice on a bill is rarely the most representative one. Perspectives puts the stated case for and against beside the bill itself, so the argument and the record sit in the same room.

Paid is marked

A verified official's own words are their own source and say so. A paid perspective shows solid magenta and the committee that paid for it. Nothing here is hidden behind a nicer word.

Built · fills as representatives verify

Take a sounding

A verified representative floats a proposal before introducing it. Constituents weigh in. Your answer goes on your record, and theirs goes on theirs.

Sounding · from a verified official

a proposal, before it is drafted

The district answers before the bill is written. If the proposal becomes a bill, the record follows it.

The channel back, before the bill is written.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Frederick Douglass, 1857

For the first time, a district is heard before the bill exists. Petition stops being a scroll left at the door and becomes a standing line, open both ways. An official who listens gets credit for listening — and the one who floated an idea and then voted against it has a record of that too.

For elected officials

Hear your district

Between elections — without a pollster, and without the noise. Verified officeholders get their own profile, Soundings, stated positions, and the same Civic DNA their constituents have.

The welfare of the people is the highest law.

Cicero, De Legibus

Representative mode

Claim your profile

Every officeholder already has a profile on WayVote, built from the public record. Claiming it is verified — your official email or government ID, a check against the officeholder roster, and a person who reviews every one. No path skips the person.

Edit bio and photo only. Never the record.

What you get

A continuous read on the people you represent, as a whole and never as a list of names. A place to say where you stand that is yours alone. A way to float an idea before it is law and hear the answer first. And the one thing no pollster can sell you: proof that you kept your word.

What you cannot do

Alter, hide, or self-report a vote. Your voting record stays exactly as the chamber recorded it. An official who publishes a position accepts being scored against it — that is the deal, and it is the same deal for every party.

Where it leads

Today a representative learns what their district thinks every two years, on one day. With a district that keeps a record, they learn it every day — from the people they actually represent. Government does not just get more accountable. It gets more efficient: fewer surprises, fewer fights over what the district wanted, more decisions made with the answer already in hand.

Ask about claiming your profile hello@way.vote

The charter

What we hold, and what holds us

Six principles older than any app, and the concrete thing we build for each.

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.

Susan B. Anthony, 1873

IArticle IRepresentationAlignment · Civic DNA · Capitol Match IIArticle IIThe RecordReal bills · Bill Breakdown · Say vs. Vote IIIArticle IIIConsentHappening Now · Ballot Match · What's on the ballot IVArticle IVAssemblyCivic Twin · Community VArticle VPetitionSoundings · Representatives · Perspectives VIArticle VIAmendmentLocal first · San Diego County · Where this goes

Ballot Match · the three-question version24 days to Nov 3

Where do you stand

Three questions for every measure on your ballot. Your answers come back as a lean — toward YES, toward NO, or split. It is your own answers reflected, not our view: nothing here tells you how to vote. Nothing leaves this device.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates, in Plato's Apology, 399 BC

← Back to the ballot

0 of 34 answered

leans YESleans NOsplitstartednot yet

County

Two measures every voter in San Diego County sees.

City measures

Only the measures for the city you picked above.

School bonds

Nine districts. The questions are the same shape on purpose — the numbers are each district's own.

Districts

A water district and two road zones, for the people inside them.

State propositions

Fourteen, for every voter in California.

Who's running: what to look for

No lean here, on purpose. A candidate's record is the only honest basis for a match, and no one has a record on file for every name on this ballot — so a guess would be a guess. These three questions tell you what to read for in each candidate's statement. The WayVote app does the comparison where a public voting record exists.

Take it with you

Your leanings

The measures on your ballot and where your own answers put you. Print it, copy it, carry it to the vote center — then read the measure once more before you fill in the oval.

Nothing yet. Answer any measure above and it appears here.

Back to the ballot

Your answers are stored only in this browser, on this device, and are never sent to WayVote or anyone else. A lean is the plain average of your three answers to a measure — nothing more. Clearing this page removes them.

Article I

Representation

…government of the people, by the people, for the people…

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, 1863

The principle

"I represent you" is not a description. It is a claim — and every claim must be checkable.

An official who says they represent a district has made a testable statement. The test is the record: how they voted, held against how the people they represent would have voted. Anything less — a party label, an endorsement, a feeling on election night — is a proxy standing in for a measurement nobody made.

What WayVote builds for it

Your AlignmentOne number between you and each person who votes in your name, recomputed as either of you moves.

Civic DNAYour shape across thirty-eight categories — where you stand and how much you care — comparable to any official the platform scores.

Capitol MatchWhere you land among nationally known figures, and a separate ledger of whether they followed through.

Held to it by

Only you can move your score. Nothing an official says, pays for, or publishes can change a number that belongs to you.

← The charter Article II · The Record →

Article II

The Record

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

Thomas Jefferson, 1789

The principle

The only honest witness is the record: what was voted, when, and by whom. Not the speech. Not the ad.

Every roll call is already public. Every bill is already published. The information was never hidden; it was made unreadable by volume. A people cannot be well-informed by a record no one can read, so the first duty is to do the reading, and to show the work.

What WayVote builds for it

Vote on real billsFederal, state and local, one at a time, in plain language, with the case for and against.

Bill BreakdownsProvision by provision, because a bill is never one thing.

Say vs. VoteWhat an official said, held next to how they voted, topic by topic.

Held to it by

Every record links to its official source. Officials cannot edit their record — not alter it, hide it, or self-report a vote.

← Article I Article III · Consent →

Article III

Consent

…deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Declaration of Independence, 1776

The principle

Consent is not given once every two years. It is given, or withheld, bill by bill.

An election is a blunt instrument: one day, one choice, a thousand questions folded into it. A government that wants to know whether it still has consent should be able to ask on the day the vote is taken — and a citizen should be able to answer in the same breath.

What WayVote builds for it

Happening Nowin buildFloor votes as they happen, with your own vote cast alongside.

Ballot MatchThe candidates and measures on your actual ballot, held against your record.

Voting historyYour vote beside your representative's and the public's, on the same bill, append-only.

Held to it by

Nothing about a named person until it is settled. Where a claim is disputed, we show the dispute rather than decide it; corrections are logged, dated, never silent.

← Article II Article IV · Assembly →

Article IV

Assembly

Local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free nations.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835

The principle

People who stand together can be heard. People alone are polled.

Most of the people who agree with you have never met you. They are in your district, voting the same way on the same bills, and no one has ever drawn the line between you. Drawing it — only by consent, only from the record — is how a district becomes something that can act.

What WayVote builds for it

Civic TwinThe people who vote the way you do, shown to each other only after both approve.

Groups & CoalitionsAround a bill, a topic, or a place — growing into coalitions when there is real activity behind them.

Geographic alignmentHow your district, city, and state stand on any issue — as a whole, never as individuals.

Held to it by

Your data is never sold and never shown alone. Every aggregate is floored at thirty people, so no view can be traced back to one.

← Article III Article V · Petition →

Article V

Petition

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

James Madison, Federalist No. 51, 1788

The principle

Because they are not, there must be a channel back — before the bill is written, not after the vote is cast.

An official acting in good faith cannot hear their district between elections except through polls they pay for and the people who show up to lobby. Petition, in a working republic, is not a scroll delivered to a door. It is a standing line, open in both directions, that an official can be held to.

What WayVote builds for it

Soundingsin buildA verified official floats a proposal before it is drafted; the district answers.

Representative Modein buildOfficials claim their profile through human-reviewed verification and hear their district in aggregate.

Stated positionsin buildAn official publishes where they stand — and accepts being scored against it.

Held to it by

No side has a setting. The same rules score every official in every party, and no one on our team can add an editorial input without it being visible.

← Article IV Article VI · Amendment →

Article VI

Amendment

We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.

Pericles, as recorded by Thucydides · Jowett translation, 1881

The principle

The loop must reach every level of government — and the smallest levels first.

Local government decides most of what touches a day, and is the hardest to follow. A republic that only watches its capital has abandoned its towns. So we build downward on purpose: county, city, school board — the same honest comparison, the same rules, one account.

Where this goes

Local firstSan Diego County and its cities, then Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., and New York — depth before breadth.

A district that can be heardThe community's position on any bill, visible by district, city, state, and country — always as a whole.

Government that works betterWhen the loop between what people want and what gets voted on is continuous instead of biennial, government becomes more efficient, not just more accountable.

Held to it by

A figure appears only when it is verified. A missing number is a sentence, not a placeholder.

← Article V Civic DNA →

The WayVote app · invite-only beta · San Diego first

Join the beta

The WayVote app is in a private, invite-only beta, opening city by city — San Diego County first. Name, email, city. We send the invite when your city is ready. Nothing else, and nothing sold.

You're on the list

We'll send the invite to your email when your city opens. Until then, your ballot is ready to read.

See your ballot Back home

San Diego County first

Every city in the county, then Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., and New York. Depth before breadth — your council and school board before someone else's.

What the beta is

The app is working and in private use. We open the doors when a city is ready, not on a date — and every invitee agrees to a short beta agreement first.

Privacy is a feature

"Make your vote count" is an opt-in. One flag in Settings governs every aggregate use. Nothing geographic is ever shown below thirty people.

About

Way. Vote

Civic intelligence for a brighter tomorrow. People, perspective, progress.

The thesis

No more veil. Radical transparency between citizens and the people elected to represent them. Most people have no idea how their representatives actually vote, and no record of where they themselves stand. WayVote gives each person a record of their own positions, built from real legislation, and measures how closely every representative's record matches it.

The name

Way, as in a path — the way through a record that was never meant to be read by one person. Vote, because that is the only input that counts here.

The company

WayVote is built by Symposiarch, LLC, a California company based in San Diego. In ancient Greece, a symposiarch was the person elected to keep a gathering civil — to give everyone a turn and keep the conversation honest. That is the job we have taken on.

What we never do

WayVote states no position on any bill, measure or candidate. No endorsements, no recommendations, no side with a setting. The same rules score every official in every party.

From the founder

I built WayVote because I wanted a plain answer to a plain question — does the person I voted for vote the way I would? — and found that the answer was public, enormous, and unread. Every rule in the product came from refusing to guess at it.

You will never be told what to think here. You will be shown the record, and you will be shown yourself in it.

Founder · Symposiarch, LLC

The app

wayvote.app is in a private, invite-only beta. This site is its public window: what it is, why it exists, and the ballot it is built around first.

How this is different

Three lanes, and the one between them

Civic technology mostly runs in three lanes, and every one of them is useful.

Lane one

Election information

Where to vote, when, and what's on the ballot. Essential, and nobody keeps a record of what you decided.

Lane two

Quizzes and candidate matches

Answer questions, get matched to what candidates say they believe. Useful once, before an election, and built on statements.

Lane three

Trackers and contact-your-rep

Follow a bill, send a message, sign a petition. The record is theirs; yours is never kept.

WayVote keeps your record, from real bills, at every level — and measures every representative's recorded votes against it.

Then it does what none of the lanes do: it lets citizens find each other by record, with consent; it holds an official's own statements against their later votes; and it opens a channel back from a district to an official before a bill is written. One account, from Congress to the school board, with no position taken on anything — ever.

We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

Legal

Terms of Service

DraftThe counsel-reviewed text goes here. The headings below are the structure of the existing draft (California law, JAMS arbitration, age 13 minimum with guardian gating through 17). Nothing on this page is final until counsel signs off.

Who may use WayVote

Anyone may create a profile. Users under 18 need a parent or guardian to sign off before the profile goes live. Users under 13 may not use WayVote.

What WayVote is, and is not

WayVote shows public records and your own answers side by side. It takes no position on any bill, measure or candidate, and nothing on the service is advice about how to vote.

Your record

Your votes and questionnaire answers are yours. Only they can change a score that belongs to you.

Verified officials

A verified officeholder may claim a profile, publish statements and float Soundings. They may not alter, hide or self-report a vote.

Governing law and disputes

California law · JAMS arbitration · counsel to confirm

Trademarks

WayVote™ and Symposiarch™ are trademarks of Symposiarch, LLC.

Changes

Changes to these terms are dated and logged, never silent.

Contact

Questions about these terms: legal@way.vote. Copyright or takedown notices: dmca@way.vote. Security reports: security@way.vote.

Legal

Privacy Policy

DraftThe counsel-reviewed text goes here. What follows is the policy as practiced, in plain words, and the structure the full text must match.

What we collect

To join the beta: your name, email and city. In the app: your votes, questionnaire answers, and the home location that decides which representatives and ballots are yours.

What we never do

We never sell individual data and never show it alone. Anything shown in aggregate is floored at thirty people, so no view can be traced back to one.

Opt-in

"Make your vote count" is an opt-in. One flag in Settings governs every aggregate use — sentiment views, live tallies, Soundings, and any aggregate product.

Minors

Anyone can create a profile; under-18s need a parent or guardian to sign off. Under-13s may not use WayVote.

Identity verification

Where identity is verified, documents are handled by a third-party processor and never touch WayVote's servers.

Your rights

You can ask to see, correct, or delete what we hold about you. Write to privacy@way.vote. CCPA/CPRA request flow and response times · counsel to confirm

This website

Joining the beta sends three things — your name, email and city — and nothing else. The site sets no cookies. It counts visits with Vercel Web Analytics, which is cookieless and does not identify you: it records the page, the referring site, and the country, browser and device type — nothing about who you are. See How we verify for what it stores on your device.

Trust

How we verify

Trust is a set of promises you can hold us to. These are ours, and the platform is built so that we cannot quietly break them.

Every record links to its official source

Votes come from the chambers that recorded them. Funding comes from public filings. Ballot measure wording comes from the Secretary of State's guide, the Registrar of Voters' filings, and city clerks' materials. If we cannot trace a fact to where it was recorded, we do not show it.

Only you can move your score

Your alignment is computed from your own votes and answers. Nothing an official says, pays for, or publishes can change a number that belongs to you.

Officials cannot edit their record

A verified representative can claim their profile and add statements. They cannot alter, hide, or self-report a vote. A statement is locked once a vote is scheduled.

How an official is verified

Official email one-time code, or government ID and liveness through a third-party processor — then a cross-check against the public officeholder roster, then a human review. No path skips the human.

Nothing about a named person until it is settled

Where a claim about an official is disputed, we show the dispute rather than decide it. Corrections are logged, dated, and never silent.

No side has a setting

The same rules score every official in every party. There is no input for editorial judgment, and no one on our team can add one without it being visible.

Report an issue

If something is wrong, the official document wins. Write to support@way.vote and we will fix it and log the correction.

Data and sources

Every record on WayVote links to where it was recorded. The sources behind the app and this site, with the credit each asks for:

LegiScan — state legislation and roll calls. Legislative data provided by LegiScan, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Congress.gov — federal bills, votes and nominations, from the Library of Congress.
Open States (Plural) — state legislator rosters and bills, CC0.
OpenFEC — federal campaign-finance totals, from the Federal Election Commission. Totals only; never individual donor records.
San Diego County Registrar of Voters and the California Secretary of State — ballot measures, candidate lists, key dates, and the official wording of YES and NO.
Democracy Works Elections API and the Google Civic Information API — election dates and districts.

Where a fact cannot be traced to one of these, it is not shown.

Accessibility

way.vote and the WayVote app aim to meet WCAG 2.2 AA. Every page works with a keyboard, every control has a visible focus state, motion is reduced when your device asks for it, and nothing is conveyed by color alone — every colored signal carries a word. If something on this site is hard to use, write to support@way.vote and we will fix it.

What this site stores on your device

This site sets no cookies and runs no advertising scripts. One script counts visits (Vercel Web Analytics); it sets no cookie and does not identify you. It remembers one thing in your browser, if you choose it: the city you picked on the ballot page, so it is still picked when you come back. Nothing is sent anywhere.

We, the represented