Methodology
What Ballot Awareness is
Ballot Awareness is an independent, nonpartisan voter guide. It is not affiliated with any government, campaign, party, or election office. It accepts no advertising, sells no data, and makes no endorsements. It is a research starting point, not a substitute for your state's official election information.
How candidates are verified
A race appears on this site only after its candidates are confirmed through primary results or official certification. Sources include state election offices and Secretaries of State, Ballotpedia, the Associated Press, NBC News election results, and candidates' own campaign materials. States go live on the site as their primaries conclude and nominees are settled.
Where candidate positions come from
Position summaries are drawn from candidates' public statements, campaign websites, voting records, and news coverage. They are written to be descriptive, not evaluative, and candidates may describe their own views differently. Both major candidates in a race are given comparable depth. Ballot-qualified minor-party and independent candidates are included when they show meaningful support in ratings or polling (for example, the independents in Montana and Nebraska); otherwise races focus on the major-party nominees. For full platforms, always see the candidates' official sites.
How race ratings work
Each race shows a rating drawn from published assessments by nonpartisan analysts — the Cook Political Report, Sabato's Crystal Ball, and Inside Elections — combined with public polling from established pollsters (for example NYT/Siena, Fox News, and university polls). Candidates are listed strongest to weakest, and each carries one of these ratings:
| Rating | What it means |
|---|---|
| Toss-up | Too close to call; either candidate could win |
| Lean | One candidate has a modest edge |
| Likely | One candidate is clearly favored |
| Safe | One candidate is heavily favored |
| Uncontested | Only one candidate is running |
These ratings describe where a race stands today, not a prediction or a guarantee — races can and do move, and upsets happen. They are meant to inform your decision, not make it for you. Every race cites the specific rating or poll behind it, and each state page lists its sources with a "data verified as of" date.
District lookups
The address-based district finder uses the official U.S. Census Bureau geocoder. Addresses are sent only to the Census Bureau for the lookup and are never stored by this site. Zip-code lookups are approximate — a single zip can span multiple districts — which is why district-level races are organized by district pickers rather than by zip.
Corrections
Accuracy matters more than speed. If you find an error — a wrong candidate, a stale rating, a broken link — email ballotawareness@gmail.com and it will be reviewed and fixed. Material corrections update the affected state's "data verified" date.
Privacy
No accounts, no tracking cookies, no ads, and no sale of data. The site uses privacy-friendly, cookieless analytics to understand site usage in aggregate. See our full Privacy Policy for details on what we collect, the third parties involved, and our use of AI to help prepare content.