About

Last updated August 2, 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

• We launched early on purpose. The state certifies its candidate list on August 27 (which we will use to update the site) — but given the energy of the June primaries, we wanted to give people more time to make the decision, since some races have been very close.
• The experience is designed to be simple. 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 also current. Proposition 50 redrew California’s congressional districts for 2026, and your ballot is resolved against the state’s official Prop 50 map — not last cycle’s lines — so where a boundary moved, you see the contest for the district you’re actually in — if it changed for you.

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. There are many online tools that help you understand your ballot, and I recommend you do your research. I made this first for me, and now (maybe) - for you.

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.

We don’t tell you who to vote for

We make no endorsements and publish none. Our job is to lay out what each contest is, who is running, and what the record shows — the decision is yours.

Where the data comes from

Official public records first, always. Candidate lists and election data come from the California Secretary of State and county election offices such as the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. Campaign-finance figures come from the Federal Election Commission’s bulk filings, the state’s Cal-Access disclosure system, and the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission’s open data. Your ballot itself is resolved from your address using public government geocoding and district-map services — see our privacy policy for how that works without your address ever being stored.

Independent journalism — nonprofit newsrooms and local outlets — supplies context the raw record can’t, and is cited alongside it, never in place of it.

How contests are written and checked

Every contest page cites its sources, with links and retrieval dates. Each source is classified (official record, public institution, nonprofit journalism, local journalism, reference guide, advocacy, endorsement) and scored on a published rubric; official records anchor the score and perspective sources get extra scrutiny. Every contest must stay at or above a minimum source-objectivity threshold, and that check runs automatically on every deploy — content that can’t cite its sources doesn’t ship. The per-contest objectivity score is shown on your ballot, and a full static index of every contest we cover is published in the Corpus.

When the official record and earlier coverage disagree, the record wins: we update or correct authored text rather than let a stale claim stand. Before a state or county certifies its candidate list, the ballot is clearly labeled as an early preview and is rebuilt from the certified list once it is published.

Who runs this, and who pays for it

Vote or Else is built and maintained under Jury (opens in a new tab), currently a one-person operation. 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).