Transparency

Last Updated: June 1, 2026

Representative government depends on trust.

Trust depends on being able to see how things work. This page explains who operates AmericanVoters, how it's funded, how we produce the legislative briefings you see on the platform, and how we handle your information.

Who Operates AmericanVoters

AmericanVoters is built and operated by SeniorsUnited, Inc., a nonprofit civic organization focused on strengthening democratic accountability and helping constituents engage with the legislation that affects them.

SeniorsUnited supports a range of civic concerns and policy areas. For SeniorsUnited's full mission and history, including the organization's origin story, see seniorsunited.com.

Our Mission

The mission of AmericanVoters is to strengthen representative democracy by helping people:

• understand what Congress is considering
• follow legislation connected to their concerns
• communicate with their representatives through official channels

The platform is designed to support informed participation between elections.

Funding & Independence

AmericanVoters is supported primarily by individual contributions from people who believe in strengthening civic participation. Payments are processed by Stripe; we do not store your payment information.

SeniorsUnited, Inc. is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization. Contributions are not tax-deductible for federal income tax purposes.

The platform is not funded by corporations or lobbying organizations.

Contributions help support:

• platform development and maintenance
• bill briefings and legislative analysis
• civic engagement tools for constituents

AmericanVoters does not accept funding that would influence how legislation is explained or evaluated.

Editorial Independence

AmericanVoters publishes legislative briefings to help people understand what Congress is considering.

These briefings are developed independently and guided by the civic principles outlined in our Values & Principles page. They are not written or influenced by political parties, campaigns, corporations, or lobbying organizations.

Our goal is to make legislative activity clearer so people can decide for themselves how they wish to engage.

How Bill Briefings Are Produced

Every bill we track gets an AmericanVoters Legislative Briefing — a structured, source-grounded document that explains the bill in plain English. Each bill has two versions of its briefing.

Two Versions

• A short version — generated automatically when we ingest a new bill from Congress.gov. It's what you see in browse views and bill cards. Fact-focused; no perspective sections.
• A full version — generated when you follow a bill on AmericanVoters. A structured deep brief with sections for facts, fiscal considerations, supporters' arguments, critics' arguments, context, and a clearly-labeled perspective section called "Our Take." This is what you see on Bills We're Following.

Source-First Approach

Every briefing is built using information from Congress.gov and Govinfo.gov — the official sources for U.S. legislative activity and government publications. We rely on four parts of the congressional record:

• Bill Text — the actual legal language that defines what would change
• CRS Summaries — nonpartisan analysis from the Congressional Research Service
• Congressional Record — statements and debate from members of Congress
• Related Bills — alternative approaches to the same issue

If something isn't supported by these sources, we don't include it. No source, no statement.

When the official record is thin or missing — for example, a newly introduced bill with no CRS summary yet — briefings say so directly rather than filling gaps with assumptions.

Multi-Pass Generation

Full briefings go through a multi-pass process:

• Extraction — source materials are parsed into structured claims and attributions
• Generation — a new briefing draft is composed using the extraction
• Quality Check — the draft is reviewed against our standards (source-grounding, neutral language, source attribution)
• Revision — final adjustments based on the quality check

This process is run by AI services from OpenAI under a strict, structured prompt — the detailed set of instructions we give the AI for how to produce a briefing. Our prompt has explicit rules against organizational voice, advocacy, partisan language, and unsupported claims. For details about which AI services we use and how they handle your information, see our Privacy Policy.

Factual Sections vs. Perspective

Briefings contain two kinds of content, clearly separated:

Factual sections — including what the bill does, key provisions, supporters' arguments, critics' arguments, fiscal considerations, and context — are strictly source-grounded. Every claim must be traceable to material from Congress.gov or Govinfo.gov. When the record is limited, the briefing says so explicitly rather than inferring.

Perspective sections — "Our Take" (primary) and "Why This Bill Matters" (light touch) — are clearly labeled and explore the civic questions a bill raises. Perspective sections never claim that AmericanVoters or SeniorsUnited supports or opposes a bill, and never tell you what to think. They close with neutral framing — for example, "Americans may view these tradeoffs differently" — to preserve room for reasonable disagreement.

The Civic Evaluation Framework

When a full briefing's "Our Take" section explores what a bill might mean, it draws from a set of civic questions we call the Civic Evaluation Framework:

• Constitutional Alignment — How does this proposal affect constitutional rights, responsibilities, or the balance of power?
• Representative Accountability — Does it strengthen or weaken transparency, oversight, accountability, or the connection between people and representative government?
• National Commitments — Does it affect established public commitments such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, veterans' benefits, or other long-standing obligations?
• Fiscal Responsibility — What long-term fiscal implications, sustainability questions, or tradeoffs does the bill raise?
• Real-World Policy Outcomes — Based on the design of the policy, what practical outcomes, implementation challenges, or public effects may follow?
• Public Safety and Security — Does the bill affect public safety, domestic stability, national defense, or the government's responsibility to provide for the common defense?
• Intergenerational Responsibility — How might the proposal affect future generations in terms of stability, opportunity, obligations, or inherited risk?
• Shared Sacrifice / Shared Prosperity — Does the bill shift burdens or benefits in ways that raise questions about mutual responsibility, fairness of contribution, or broad public benefit?

These questions guide interpretation, not conclusions. They aren't applied to every bill — only the ones where they're genuinely relevant. The goal isn't to push you toward a position. It's to surface the civic questions a thoughtful reader might want to consider.

Hard Guardrails on "Our Take"

Our briefing prompts include explicit rules that apply to every briefing:

• No organizational voice. Phrases like "our values," "our mission," "we believe," "SeniorsUnited supports" are banned from every section.
• No advocacy or calls to action.
• No partisan or emotional language.
• No predictions of political outcomes.
• No claim that AmericanVoters or SeniorsUnited supports or opposes a bill.
• A required neutral closing that preserves room for reasonable disagreement.

These rules exist because the goal of a briefing is to help you think — not to tell you what to think.

Data & Privacy

AmericanVoters collects only the information necessary to operate the platform and provide civic engagement tools.

Your information is used to:

• help match legislation to your concerns
• deliver messages through official congressional channels
• improve the platform's functionality

AmericanVoters does not sell or trade user data.

For full details — including which service providers we work with, how AI processes content you submit, and what state privacy rights you have — please see our Privacy Policy.