BallotWatch - See how your representatives actually vote
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Look up your senators and representative, review congressional voting records, browse bills with source-linked explanations, and follow public legislative data.
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Maker
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BallotWatch came out of something that had been bothering me for a while: we live in a culture that's absolutely saturated with political opinion, but strangely starved of political record. Everyone has takes. Almost nobody, myself included, honestly could tell you how their own representative voted last week, or what Congress actually passed this month.
And it's not because the information is secret. It's all public: every roll-call vote, every bill, every campaign contribution. It's just scattered across half a dozen government sites and written like it's designed not to be read. A single bill can run hundreds of pages of legal cross-references. So we outsource our understanding to headlines and hot takes, and the actual record goes unread.
BallotWatch is my attempt to close that gap:
- Type your address → meet your representatives (no account needed)
- See every vote they cast — real roll calls, on the record
- Read any bill in plain English — this is where AI earns its keep. It takes the hundreds of pages of legalese and tells you what the bill actually does, in a paragraph
- Follow the money — campaign contributions, from FEC data
One thing I cared a lot about: it's deliberately non-partisan by design. Party affiliation is a small text label, not a color-coded identity. No spin, no scoring, no "this bill is good/bad." Just the record, made readable.
I'd genuinely love to hear what you'd want from a tool like this, especially: what's the one thing about Congress you've always wished you could look up but never bothered to dig for?
Thanks for checking it out
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Would love to see an alert system where I can subscribe to specific bills or topics and get notified when they hit a new stage or when my reps change their vote. Right now I'd have to manually check back, which I won't realistically do.
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Maker
@hiraxevj Thank you for the comment! Will implement this feature today
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Would love a way to subscribe to specific bills or topics and get notified when related votes happen on the floor. That way I could follow the legislation I actually care about without having to dig through the site manually every week.
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Maker
@hilal211313 Thank you for the suggestion! Been thinking about a newsletter feature or even maybe an ai system that's connected a users email or phone number to run the process.
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Finally a clean way to see how my reps actually vote without digging through clunky government sites. The bill explanations with source links are a really nice touch for staying informed.
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Maker
@azat7avp Thank you! I'm taking the information directly from Congress' website.
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Love that this links directly to bill sources, makes it way easier to trust what you're reading. One thing that would help a lot is adding push notifications when a user's specific representatives vote on something, since most folks won't remember to check back regularly.
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Maker
@tlinbyktlm4v1 Thanks for the suggestion. Will implement this today!
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Love the idea of source-linked explanations, that alone makes it worth using. One thing I'd add is the ability to set alerts for when your specific reps vote on bills you care about, so you don't have to keep checking back manually.
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the bill explanations with source links are actually really useful, makes it way easier to figure out what's going on without digging through government sites yourself
Would love a way to set alerts for specific bills so I get a heads up when they hit committee or come up for a vote. Right now I have to keep manually checking which kind of defeats the purpose of following something.
Report
Maker
@sulunbiye45916 Will definitely implement this! Thanks for the suggestion.
Report
finally something that makes voting records actually readable. the source-linked explanations on bills are a nice touch, especially for stuff like defense spending where the wording gets confusing.
Honestly love how clean the source-linked explanations are on each bill, makes it way easier to actually understand what is going on without digging through a hundred PDFs.
Replies
Would love to see an alert system where I can subscribe to specific bills or topics and get notified when they hit a new stage or when my reps change their vote. Right now I'd have to manually check back, which I won't realistically do.
@hiraxevj Thank you for the comment! Will implement this feature today
Would love a way to subscribe to specific bills or topics and get notified when related votes happen on the floor. That way I could follow the legislation I actually care about without having to dig through the site manually every week.
@hilal211313 Thank you for the suggestion! Been thinking about a newsletter feature or even maybe an ai system that's connected a users email or phone number to run the process.
Finally a clean way to see how my reps actually vote without digging through clunky government sites. The bill explanations with source links are a really nice touch for staying informed.
@azat7avp Thank you! I'm taking the information directly from Congress' website.
Love that this links directly to bill sources, makes it way easier to trust what you're reading. One thing that would help a lot is adding push notifications when a user's specific representatives vote on something, since most folks won't remember to check back regularly.
@tlinbyktlm4v1 Thanks for the suggestion. Will implement this today!
Love the idea of source-linked explanations, that alone makes it worth using. One thing I'd add is the ability to set alerts for when your specific reps vote on bills you care about, so you don't have to keep checking back manually.
the bill explanations with source links are actually really useful, makes it way easier to figure out what's going on without digging through government sites yourself
@azadkayasu3808 Thank you! I'm taking all of th information directly from https://congress.gov
Would love a way to set alerts for specific bills so I get a heads up when they hit committee or come up for a vote. Right now I have to keep manually checking which kind of defeats the purpose of following something.
@sulunbiye45916 Will definitely implement this! Thanks for the suggestion.
finally something that makes voting records actually readable. the source-linked explanations on bills are a nice touch, especially for stuff like defense spending where the wording gets confusing.
@kutluatanu71455 Thank you!
Honestly love how clean the source-linked explanations are on each bill, makes it way easier to actually understand what is going on without digging through a hundred PDFs.
@nevzato5qw Thank you!