Privacy policy

The short version

• Electorate HQ has no user accounts, no sign-up, and no database of visitors.
• What you type into the simulator is processed to run your simulation and is not saved to any database of ours.
• Analytics and advertising cookies are used only if they are configured and you consent. Declining keeps the site fully functional.
• We never build advertising profiles from your political choices in the simulator, and we never send those choices to advertising or analytics services.
• We do not sell personal information.

What we process, and why

Things you type. Candidate names, running mates, platforms, the state of the union, time settings, and questions you ask a state delegation are sent to our servers to run your simulation. We do not store them in a database, attach them to an identity, or use them for advertising. To generate results, this text is forwarded to the AI providers described below.

Technical data. Like nearly every website, our hosting provider (Vercel) processes IP addresses and request metadata to serve pages and maintain security logs. We also keep short-lived, in-memory request counts per IP address to protect the free simulation endpoints from abuse; these are not written to any database and disappear on their own.

Ballot lookups. If you use the address lookup, the address you type is sent to the U.S. Census Bureau's public geocoder to identify your state and congressional district, and the result is shown to you. We do not store the address, log it to any database, associate it with you, or send it to any AI model or advertising service.

Share links. The "Share this map" button encodes your simulation's numbers and the candidate names you typed directly into the link itself. Nothing is uploaded or stored server-side; anyone you give the link to can see exactly what is in it, so share it as you would share a screenshot.

Your own AI key, if you choose to add one. The key is saved in your browser's local storage only, sent along with your own simulation requests, and used once per request to call the provider you chose. We do not store it server-side, write it to logs, or use it for anything but the requests you make. Clearing it in the setup panel, or clearing this site's browser data, removes the only copy. Usage under your key is billed by your provider under your account and their terms.

A consent choice. If analytics or advertising is enabled, your accept-or-decline choice is stored in your browser's local storage so we do not ask on every visit. It never leaves your browser except as a consent signal to Google.

AI providers

Simulations are generated by third-party large language model providers. Depending on availability, a request may be served by Google (Gemini), Groq, NVIDIA, Mistral, Cloudflare, or OpenAI. The text needed to run your simulation is sent to the provider that serves it, under that provider's API terms. We cannot guarantee any provider's internal retention behavior beyond what their policies state, and we do not send them anything about you beyond the simulation text itself. AI outputs can be wrong; every simulation is labeled as an AI simulation.

Cookies, analytics and advertising

When configured, we use Google Analytics 4 to understand which pages are useful, and Google AdSense to show ads. Both are governed by Google Consent Mode: until you consent, they run in a restricted, cookieless mode, and if you decline they stay that way. You can change your choice at any time with the Privacy choices link in the footer. Our analytics events record that a simulation ran, never which candidates, parties or platforms were in it. We do not use your political choices for ad targeting, and we do not pass them to Google or anyone else.

Third parties we rely on

• Vercel: hosting, request logs, and Vercel Web Analytics, which counts page views without cookies and without identifying visitors.
• AI model providers, as listed above: simulation processing.
• Wikipedia and Google News: fetched server-side for race background and headlines. Your identity is not part of those requests.
• U.S. Census Bureau geocoder: receives the address you type into the ballot lookup, solely to resolve your districts.
• Google Analytics and Google AdSense: only when configured, and subject to your consent.

What we do not have

No accounts, no passwords, no payment processing, no file uploads, no user database, and no data broker relationships. If any of that changes, this policy will change first and the change will be dated.

Your choices and rights

You can use the entire site without consenting to analytics or advertising cookies. You can clear the consent choice with your browser's site-data controls or change it via Privacy choices. Because we keep no database of visitors, there is usually nothing for us to look up, correct or delete; if you believe we hold something about you, contact us and we will investigate and honor applicable access and deletion rights. Reach us at electoratehq@gmail.com.

Children

Electorate HQ is a general-audience political education tool and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

Changes and review status

We will update this page when practices change and revise the date above. This policy accurately describes the site's behavior as built, and is pending final review by legal counsel; wording may be refined, but the practices it describes are in effect now. Questions belong on the contact page.