Elections Simplified Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 10, 2026 Version: 1.6

This Privacy Policy describes how Elections Simplified Inc., a Delaware corporation and the operator of the Elections Simplified service ("Elections Simplified," "we," "us"), collects, uses, and shares information when you use the Elections Simplified website and services (the "Service").

1. Information we collect

Address and search input. When you enter an address, we process it to determine your voting districts. The address is sent to geocoding services (see Section 3) and may be held in a server-side cache for up to 14 days to speed up repeat lookups; this cache is not linked to your account. What we store on your account is the resulting list of districts — not your street address. We do not maintain a saved-address book.

Account information. If you create an account: your email address, first name, and a cryptographic hash of your password (we never store the password itself). We also record which version of our terms you accepted and when.

Sign in with Google (optional). If you choose to sign up or sign in with your Google account, we receive from Google a signed identity token containing your stable Google account identifier, your Google account email address and its verification status (including whether it belongs to a Google Workspace organization), and optionally your first name. We store the identifier to recognize your sign-in and the email address and first name as your account information above. We receive no Google access or refresh tokens, cannot access your Google data (mail, contacts, files), and make no ongoing requests to your Google account. An account created with Google has no password until you set one (see Section 6).

Support payments (optional). If you choose to support the Service with a one-time payment or a monthly membership, the payment is processed by Stripe (see Section 3); you enter your card details on Stripe's payment pages, and your card number never reaches our servers. Stripe's payment notifications to us may include limited billing details (such as the name and email address you gave Stripe), which we do not store. What we store is the payment amount, date, type (one-time or monthly), refund status, and Stripe reference identifiers, linked to your account.

Preferences and activity. Settings you choose: candidates you follow, research-area interests, ballot ordering preferences, and email notification opt-ins.

Your picks. If you record a pick for a race or a position on a ballot measure, we store it on your account so your ballot draft is there when you return. Because the Service is about elections, your picks, follows, and interests may reveal your civic or political views. We treat them as your private account data and never sell them or disclose them to third parties; the one exception is a pick card you choose to share, described below. We use them to provide the features you chose and to select relevant civic updates for the notification emails you control in settings. If those emails ever include clearly labeled promotional content from a civic organization, it is chosen only from the research-area interests you selected (for example, an environmental group for someone who chose the environment as an interest), never from your picks or the candidates you follow. Every such email includes a working unsubscribe link, and the data used to choose them never leaves us.

Shared pick cards (optional). If you click Share on a date's pick card, we create a link that shows anyone who has it the picks on that card for that date, together with your first name. The card is live: it shows your picks as they stand when the link is opened. Nothing is shared until you click Share, and you can stop sharing at any time from your picks page, which makes the link stop working. Deleting your account removes every shared link.

Ask (chat) questions. If you use the Ask feature, the questions you type are processed to find an answer in our own election database. Questions are logged anonymously: before a question is stored, email addresses, phone numbers, street addresses, and long digit sequences are removed, and the stored question is never linked to your account. Stored question text is deleted after 90 days; only aggregate statistics about commonly asked questions (never rare or unique ones) are kept longer. Please don't include personal information in your questions.

Content reports. If you report inaccurate or outdated content, we store the report message, the content item you identified, any optional source URL, any optional contact email you provide, and if you are signed in, your account identifier, so we can investigate and improve accuracy. Do not include sensitive personal information in content reports.

Technical information. IP address, browser user agent, and request logs collected automatically for security, rate limiting, and abuse prevention. A session cookie (httpOnly) keeps you signed in. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Usage analytics. We collect information about how the Service is used so we can improve it: which kinds of pages are viewed (the page type, never the full web address), which site controls are used, which sections of a page come into view as you scroll (for example, a candidate's finance section), how long a page stays visible, coarse device type (phone, tablet, or desktop), the general kind of site that referred you (a search engine, a social network, or none), the U.S. state and rough size of a ballot you looked at, and whether an action such as an address search succeeded or failed. This is collected by us, on our own infrastructure, with no third-party analytics service. It is tied to a random identifier that lives only in your browser tab, is not a cookie, resets after 30 minutes of inactivity, and is never linked to your account, your email, your address, the districts, candidates, or elections you looked at, or the choices you record. Analytics data is not used to build advertising profiles and is not shared with advertisers. You can turn it off for your browser (see Section 5).

2. How we use information

To provide the Service (find your districts, show your ballot, send notification emails you opted into); to secure the Service (authentication, rate limiting, abuse prevention); to understand and improve how the Service is used (analytics); to communicate with you about your account (verification, password reset, email-change confirmation); and to comply with law. We do not sell personal information, share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, or use it to build advertising profiles.

3. Service providers

We share information only with the processors needed to run the Service:

• U.S. Census Bureau geocoder — receives the address text you enter, to locate your districts.
• Google Places (autocomplete) — receives the address text you type when address suggestions are enabled; requests are proxied through our servers so Google does not receive your IP address from your browser.
• Google (Sign in with Google) — when you choose to sign in with Google, your browser interacts with Google directly to complete the sign-in (Google's own privacy policy applies to that interaction), and we receive the identity token described in Section 1. We send Google nothing about your activity in the Service.
• Amazon Web Services (SES) — receives your email address to deliver account and notification emails.
• Usage analytics — the usage information described in Section 1 is collected and stored by us on the infrastructure providers listed below; no separate analytics company receives it.
• OpenAI (AI answers in Ask) — when AI-generated answers are enabled for the Ask feature, receives the text of your chat question and the snippets of our own election data used to answer it, together with a pseudonymous account identifier (a cryptographic hash used only for abuse prevention — never your email address, name, or address). We send requests with storage disabled, and under OpenAI's API terms this content is not used to train OpenAI's models. AI answers are labeled as AI-generated in the Service.
• Stripe (support payments) — if you choose to make a support payment, Stripe collects your card and billing details directly on its own payment pages (we never receive your card number) and processes the payment, any recurring membership billing, and any refund on our behalf. We receive the payment amount, status, and reference identifiers. Stripe also retains payment records under its own legal obligations; see Stripe's privacy policy at stripe.com/privacy.
• Sentry (error monitoring) — when error monitoring is enabled, receives reports about application errors (error type, stack trace, browser and device type, and the page path with its query string removed) so we can find and fix failures. We configure these reports to exclude your IP address, email address, address text, and the contents of your requests.
• Infrastructure providers — hosting, database, and cache providers that store Service data on our behalf.

Each receives only what its function requires. We do not share personal information with data brokers, advertisers, campaigns, or political organizations.

We may also disclose information if we believe in good faith that disclosure is required by law, subpoena, or other legal process, or is necessary to protect the rights, property, safety, or security of the Service, our users, or others, or to detect, prevent, or address fraud, abuse, or security issues. If the Service or its operator is involved in a merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, account information may be transferred as part of that transaction; this Privacy Policy will continue to apply to it. The Service is operated from the United States, and information is processed and stored in the United States.

4. Retention and deletion

Account data is kept while your account is active. If you delete your account, your account record and its associated data — email address, name, the Google account identifier if you signed in with Google, saved districts, follows, preferences, and notification history — are deleted immediately: sessions are destroyed, notification sending stops, and your email address is released for re-registration. Content reports you submitted while signed in are kept for moderation purposes with your account identifier and contact email removed. If you made support payments, any active membership is canceled when you delete your account, and the payment records described in Section 1 (amounts, dates, type, refund status, and Stripe reference identifiers) are retained for accounting, tax, and legal-compliance purposes with the link to your deleted account removed; Stripe separately retains its payment records under its own legal obligations. Residual records may persist in backups and security logs for a limited period before being purged. Cached address lookups expire automatically. Notification event records are pruned on a rolling schedule. Usage analytics events are deleted 90 days after they are received; only aggregate statistics that identify no browser or session are kept longer.

5. Your choices

You can view and update your name, email address, password, districts, follows, and email preferences in account settings; you can change or remove your picks and stop sharing any pick card link from your picks page; every notification email includes a working unsubscribe link; and you can delete your account entirely in settings. You can turn usage analytics off for your browser with the control at the bottom of this page; the choice is remembered in your browser, and we honor opt-out mechanisms where required by applicable law. For access or deletion requests you cannot complete in the app, or questions about this policy, contact contact@electionssimplified.com. Depending on where you live, you may have additional privacy rights (such as access, correction, deletion, or portability); we honor valid requests as required by applicable law.

6. Security

Passwords are stored using a modern memory-hard hashing algorithm; sessions use httpOnly cookies; email-verification, password-reset, and email-change links are single-use and expire; and account-sensitive actions require your password and are rate limited. An account created with Sign in with Google has no password until you set one; changing your email or deleting your account then requires setting a password first (account settings link to the emailed set-a-password flow). No system is perfectly secure — use a unique password.

7. Children

The Service is not directed to children and requires users to be at least 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13; if you believe a child has provided us personal information, contact contact@electionssimplified.com and we will delete it.

8. Changes

We may update this Privacy Policy; the version and date above identify the current text. For material changes we will provide notice in the Service and may require renewed acceptance.

9. Contact

Elections Simplified (operated by Elections Simplified Inc.) — contact@electionssimplified.com