About

Last updated October 11, 2026

Vote or Else is a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. We are an independent project: not a government site, not an official voter guide, and not affiliated with any party, campaign, or committee.

What makes us unique

• Objectivity first. We don’t tell you who to vote for. Our job is to lay out each candidate contest, and give you an understanding of who they are, what they’ve done, and what they care about. The decision is yours.
  • We defer to official records. Candidate lists and election data come from the California Secretary of State and county election offices; campaign-finance figures from the FEC, Cal-Access, and the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission.
  • We pull from a variety of independent journalism organizations. Nonprofit newsrooms and local outlets are cited alongside the record, never in place of it.
  • Every source is scored. Sources are classified and graded with bespoke evals, and a contest that falls below the minimum objectivity score doesn’t ship. The score is shown on your ballot.
  • Every contest cites its sources, with links and retrieval dates.
• Privacy. No accounts or ads, and you’re in control of how deep you want to go. Just enter your address, read your ballot, make your picks. Because your address is used once to find your districts and never stored, your data only lives on your device — so there is no voter database or server with private user information to breach or sell.
• It’s free and easy! No paywall. No clunky web experience. Designed for you. For the people. For California. For These United States. We do the work so all you have to do is decide.

We know how busy everyone is. The world demands a lot out of us and in my opinion, a lot of that pent up frustration comes out in violent ways that hurt others - even unintentionally.

Know who you’re actually voting for without wasting unnecessary energy. All the way from the bottom to the top. Pick well - the future is in your hands.

Where the data comes from

One principle, from the very beginning, was to use official resources as much as possible as the basis of the experience. To relay trust, the system evaluates credibility through a weighted system of:

• tiered source categories
  • 90–98: certified election records and campaign-finance filings
  • 84–86: nonprofit newsrooms
  • 74–80: local outlets
  • 54: editorial endorsements
  • 48: advocacy guides
• source volume (averaged sources, then adjusted)
  • -12 if no official-record anchor
  • -8 if only a single source
  • -15 if singularly from a pointed advocacy source
  • +3: if source depth across at least 3 source categories

with a required minimum score to publish (nothing below 70 gets published).

Who runs this, and who pays for it

Vote or Else is built and maintained by a one-woman team in Los Angeles. All our work is about being useful to people, making society healthier, and this world a more beautiful place. It is self-funded — no ads, trackers, sponsored content, and no money from campaigns, parties, or political committees.

If the experience has been helpful, please share it with others, write about it, post about it, etc. The internet is wild and noisy - your support gives us credibility!

Official election resources

For registration and official election business, go straight to the source: register or update your registration at registertovote.ca.gov (opens in a new tab), check your status at voterstatus.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab), and find county-specific voting information at sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab) or (in Los Angeles County) lavote.gov (opens in a new tab).