The short version
- We never receive your address. Your browser sends it straight to the U.S. Census Bureau and Google to find your districts and ballot.
- We don't have accounts, don't ask for your name or email, and don't sell or share data.
- Your picks stay on your device.
- We use Google Analytics to count visits and which features are used.
What happens when you look up a ballot
The address you type is sent by your browser directly to:
- U.S. Census Bureau geocoder, to find your county, city and districts (Census privacy policy).
- OpenStreetMap Nominatim, only if the Census Bureau can't find your address, to locate it on the map (OSM Foundation privacy policy).
- Google Civic Information API, for ballots and polling places where states provide them (Google privacy policy).
- For some Florida counties, your map coordinates (not your address) go from your browser to that county's map server to tell which commission, school or council district you're in.
Our server receives only the resulting district names and numbers (for example "Seminole County, Congressional District 7"), which many thousands of people share. We use them to send back that ballot and cache the answer; we don't log them with anything that identifies you.
Picks and shared links
Candidates and answers you mark are saved in your browser's local storage on your device, keyed by your districts. Clearing site data or tapping "Clear" removes them. When you share your picks, the link contains your districts and picks in the part after "#", which browsers never send to any server; whoever you send it to can see them.
Analytics
We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how many people use the site and which features help (for example: a lookup happened in Florida, picks were printed or shared, the Spanish toggle was used). Google Analytics sets first-party cookies and receives standard device and browser information, the page URL (without anything after "#") and an approximate location derived from your IP address. Google Signals and ad personalization are turned off. We never send it your address, districts or picks. You can block it with a browser extension or Google's opt-out add-on; the site works the same.
Hosting and security
The site runs on Cloudflare, which processes requests (including IP addresses) to deliver the site and protect it from abuse, under Cloudflare's privacy policy. Connections are encrypted (HTTPS only).
Children
SpectrumVote is a general-audience information site. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
Your choices and rights
Because we don't collect names, emails, accounts or addresses, there is no profile of you for us to access, correct or delete. Analytics data is held by Google under the settings above and expires per Google's retention settings (14 months). If this policy changes we'll update the date at the top.
Contact
Questions about privacy, or something we got wrong? Email privacy@spectrumvote.com.
En español
Nunca recibimos tu dirección: tu navegador la envía directamente a la Oficina del Censo y a Google. No tenemos cuentas ni pedimos tu nombre o correo, y no vendemos ni compartimos datos. Tus selecciones se quedan en tu dispositivo. Usamos Google Analytics (sin Google Signals ni personalización de anuncios) para contar visitas y qué funciones se usan; nunca le enviamos tu dirección, distritos ni selecciones.