Benchmark dated November 5, 2026 · Pacific time

How CongressClarity compares

CongressClarity scored 59.1/100, eighth of eleven sites for helping a citizen research and follow an elected representative. The House Clerk was the highest-scoring US site at 75.0. TheyWorkForYou led the full comparison at 77.3 for its work in the UK.

Scores by site and category

Each category carries equal weight. Select a site name for its eleven assessments. On small screens you can scroll the table or read one site at a time below.

Citizen accountability tasks · all scores out of 100
Rank	Site	Overall	C1	C2	C3	C4	C5	C6	C7	C8	C9	C10	C11
1	TheyWorkForYou	77.3	100	50	100	50	100	25	50	100	100	100	75
2	Office of the House Clerk	75.0	75	50	100	50	100	50	75	50	100	100	75
3	Congress.gov	72.7	100	100	75	25	25	75	25	100	100	100	75
4	Ballotpedia	70.5	75	50	75	75	50	50	100	50	75	75	100
5	Federal Election Commission	63.6	25	50	0	100	50	50	75	75	100	100	75
6	LegiScan	61.4	75	100	75	25	25	50	25	75	75	75	75
6	Vote Smart	61.4	75	50	75	75	25	25	75	50	75	75	75
8	CongressClarity	59.1	75	75	75	75	50	50	50	50	75	50	25
9	Congressional Budget Office	52.3	0	50	0	25	25	100	25	75	100	100	75
10	Voteview	47.7	50	25	100	0	0	25	25	25	100	100	75
11	USAspending.gov	38.6	0	25	0	0	0	100	0	50	100	75	75

Category key

C1 · Find and contact: Can a resident identify their serving representative and reach the right office?
C2 · Bills and amendments: Can they find measures, trace actions, and inspect original or changed text?
C3 · Recorded votes: Can they see an individual position, compare votes and trace the original roll?
C4 · Campaign money: Can they trace receipts, spending and independent expenditures to candidates or committees?
C5 · Lobbying and interests: Can they inspect lobbying, personal interests or ethics records, including dates and outcomes?
C6 · Budgets and spending: Can they trace a proposal’s fiscal cost or actual public awards to versions, places or recipients?
C7 · Elections and candidates: Can they inspect candidates, their answers, ballot choices or official results?
C8 · Tracking and follow-up: Can they follow a record, receive changes, or return to a saved question?
C9 · Sources and methods: Can they trace a claim to its original, understand its scope and inspect the method?
C10 · Historical coverage: How broad and continuous is the archive within the site’s own subject?
C11 · Public access and ease of use: Can someone use the core service from a public URL, discover a task and complete it with reasonable effort?

How to read the scores

The comparison uses the ten established sites in the project’s existing peer review. Selection reflects relevance to citizen tasks. It does not measure which sites attract the most traffic. TheyWorkForYou receives credit for UK parliamentary workflows. Its postcode lookup serves UK residents.

The overall score is the sum of the eleven category scores divided by eleven, rounded to one decimal. Ties share a rank. One 25-point category step changes the overall score by about 2.3 points, so small differences are sensitive to judgment. Specialists can lead their core category while placing lower in the overall table.

0 points: No relevant workflow verified in the reviewed sources. This is an evidence limit, not a claim that the capability cannot exist.
25 points: An indirect route, background material or a significant access barrier.
50 points: A direct workflow with material coverage, access or depth limits.
75 points: A strong, usable workflow with meaningful depth and a documented limitation.
100 points: Comprehensive performance for this task within the covered jurisdiction, backed by direct records or documentation.

I reviewed first-party records, product documentation and methods for the peers. I checked local records and browser workflows for CongressClarity at revision 235e8a52. Some peer features are documented rather than independently exercised. Account-based delivery, traffic, independent accessibility conformance and user testing across all sites were outside this review. C11 reflects observed or documented access and ease of use. C10 gives historical depth credit within each site’s subject.

Where CongressClarity can gain

Its strongest workflow connects evidence to an office. A resident can take a named roll, inspect a later lobbying filing that cites the same bill, and prepare a question for the representative. A common bill citation supports asking what happened; it cannot establish why the member voted. Open the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act example.

Make the tools reachable by citizens. The local app works. HTTPS checks of both congressclarity.org and www.congressclarity.org did not return the app from this environment. Verify an outside visitor can find a representative, inspect a vote and open its source on a phone. Moving access alone from 25 to 75 would move the total from 59.1 to 63.6 if the other scores held.
Close the gaps in public records. The office-published Senate annual-report path yielded verified reports for one of 100 serving senators; the questionnaire collection covers four races. Publish per-office and per-race denominators, source restrictions and dates beside results. Prioritize reliable originals where reuse is permitted. Local coverage · Candidate answer coverage.
Extend vote history and make following reliable. The sampled House participation archive ends September 16, 2026. Show each chamber’s latest roll beside its import cutoff, extend the verified archive, and test subscription delivery from an ordinary reader outside the host machine. Participation example · Bill subscriptions.

Evidence by site

The numbered links beside each judgment lead to that site’s source list. For a future review, keep this dated baseline, use the same rubric, and document which new evidence changes a rating.

CongressClarity 59.1/100

Local app verified at source revision 235e8a52. Both apex and www public HTTPS checks failed from this environment; neither probe establishes a global outage.

Find and contact 75: The local directory reports an official route for all 539 serving offices. It lists verified emails for 298 offices, including purpose-specific addresses. Only two offices have a general inbox in this snapshot. [1] [2]
Bills and amendments 75: The bill desk searches indexed text and compares editions. Across the 118th and 119th Congresses the amendment explorer indexes 11,713 proposals. The comparison depends on identifiable published sections. [3] [4]
Recorded votes 75: The member view distinguishes explicit nonvotes from missing entries and links to the original rolls. Its Amodei example covers 674 eligible rolls through September 16, 2026. [5]
Campaign money 75: Two election cycles have candidate and committee records, payment examples and independent spending. Coverage and filing cutoffs vary by race and transaction type. [6]
Lobbying and interests 50: The lobbying index links disclosures to 115 measures. The coverage panel shows verified Senate annual reports for one serving senator through the office-published route. A shared bill citation establishes a reported interest, not the reason for a vote. [1] [7]
Budgets and spending 50: Selected bill editions link to CBO estimates; selected local projects link to Treasury awards and subawards. A designation alone cannot show whether funding reached a recipient. [1] [8]
Elections and candidates 50: The voter guide links official lookups and shows ballot research. Candidate questionnaires cover four races; 67 of 147 imported ballot measures have both arguments and matched financial evidence. [1] [9]
Tracking and follow-up 50: Bill RSS, saved searches, local notes and calendar follow-ups work. Subscriptions to this installation depend on the local server remaining reachable by the reader. [10]
Sources and methods 75: Records expose source links, dates, limits and correction routes. I checked named examples; exhaustive source coverage and independent validation across the entire service remain open. [4] [5] [11]
Historical coverage 50: Legislation is especially strong across two Congresses, finance centers on two cycles, and detailed roll attendance covers the 119th. District service history extends further. [3] [5] [11]
Public access and ease of use 25: The local app opens without an account and has working mobile flows. Neither public HTTPS hostname produced this application during the review. A citizen outside the host machine has no verified public entry point. [2] [10] [12]

Reviewed sources

TheyWorkForYou 77.3/100

UK analogue. Member lookup and parliamentary scoring apply in the UK.

Find and contact 100: A UK postcode identifies the MP and leads to a contact route through WriteToThem. [1] [2]
Bills and amendments 50: Searchable parliamentary and bill committee debates trace amendments. A comprehensive edition-comparison workflow was not verified. [2]
Recorded votes 100: Divisions, individual voting histories and policy positions are tied to published methods. [3] [7]
Campaign money 50: Parliamentary donations, gifts and election-donation analysis offer a narrower window than a campaign transaction ledger. [4]
Lobbying and interests 100: The searchable interests register shows financial relationships and changes between disclosures. [4]
Budgets and spending 25: Budget debates and fiscal statements are searchable; a costed-program or individual-award ledger was not verified. [2]
Elections and candidates 50: Member and election/service histories provide constituency context. Candidate-level ballot comparison was not verified. [5]
Tracking and follow-up 100: Readers can subscribe to email alerts for members and phrases. [6]
Sources and methods 100: Hansard attribution, ParlParse data, vote explanations and downloadable registers make the record traceable. [1] [5] [7]
Historical coverage 100: The Commons debate archive reaches back to 1918. Coverage varies across UK parliaments. [7]
Public access and ease of use 75: Public postcode, contact, search and alert workflows are well documented. This review did not test accessibility conformance. [1] [2]

Reviewed sources

Office of the House Clerk 75.0/100

Find and contact 75: House member profiles show district, office, phone and an official site. Senate offices fall outside this directory. [1]
Bills and amendments 50: House floor actions identify measures and their progress. Full legislative history often requires another source. [2]
Recorded votes 100: The Clerk publishes member-by-member House roll positions, totals and machine-readable originals. [3]
Campaign money 50: LD-203 reports let readers inspect covered filers’ political contributions; they cover a subset of campaign money. [4] [5]
Lobbying and interests 100: The disclosure portal covers public financial filings, gifts, travel, legal expenses and lobbying filings. [4] [5] [6]
Budgets and spending 50: Official foreign travel expenditures are available. The portal has narrower reach than a federal budget or award ledger. [7]
Elections and candidates 75: Certified federal results are available nationwide. The reviewed election tools emphasize outcomes over prospective voter guidance. [8]
Tracking and follow-up 50: Floor RSS and downloadable updates support monitoring chamber activity. [2]
Sources and methods 100: The Clerk originates the House rolls and provides original disclosure documents. [3] [4] [6]
Historical coverage 100: Federal election statistics reach back to 1920. Other collections have their own date ranges. [8]
Public access and ease of use 75: Basic profiles, votes and downloads are public; disclosure tasks span several portals. [1] [2]

Reviewed sources

Congress.gov 72.7/100

Publisher documentation and API used where direct Congress.gov HTML restricted the crawler.

Find and contact 100: The address finder identifies serving members and routes readers to their offices. [1]
Bills and amendments 100: Actions, related measures, amendments and versioned texts span both chambers. [2] [3]
Recorded votes 75: Named House positions are searchable, with additional chamber links. The documented House roll coverage varies by year. [2] [3]
Campaign money 25: CRS explains campaign law. The reviewed materials offer background rather than a transactions search. [4]
Lobbying and interests 25: CRS explains lobbying disclosure rules. A filer-by-member interests workflow was outside the verified examples. [5]
Budgets and spending 75: Bill records link CBO estimates and support filtering for bills with an estimate. [6]
Elections and candidates 25: Election-law research is available. I found no comparable ballot or candidate comparison in the sampled tools. [4]
Tracking and follow-up 100: A free account can subscribe to bills, members and search updates. [1]
Sources and methods 100: Library of Congress collection guides, official identifiers and API documentation support tracing a record. [3] [7]
Historical coverage 100: Historical legislation and related collections span decades. Start dates differ by collection. [7]
Public access and ease of use 75: Free search, guides and text-to-speech are documented. Direct interactive HTML access was restricted for the review crawler. [1] [6]

Reviewed sources

Ballotpedia 70.5/100

Find and contact 75: An address finder identifies officeholders and member profiles link to official contact routes. [1] [2]
Bills and amendments 50: The election-legislation tracker and selected congressional bill accounts cover a narrower legislative subject. [3]
Recorded votes 75: Profiles place selected key votes and voting analysis in context. They do not promise a complete roll archive. [2]
Campaign money 75: Campaign finance sections and ballot-measure committee coverage help trace candidate and initiative money. [2] [7]
Lobbying and interests 50: Historical personal-finance analysis uses congressional disclosures. Its own period and estimation caveats limit current use. [4]
Budgets and spending 50: State budget pages and measure fiscal impacts give accessible references; detailed award tracing is a separate task. [5]
Elections and candidates 100: Address-based sample ballots combine candidates, ballot measures and Candidate Connection answers, with published local coverage limits. [6] [7]
Tracking and follow-up 50: Subject newsletters follow election developments; I did not verify a watch on an individual federal bill. [8]
Sources and methods 75: Footnotes, original references and published explanations support checking profile and ballot claims. [2] [6]
Historical coverage 75: Election profiles and results span many years. Local coverage and historical depth differ by election. [2] [6]
Public access and ease of use 100: The free ballot finder offers address-based choices, candidate comparison, adjustable detail, and bilingual guidance. Strong completion paths are documented; this grade is a desk judgment. [6] [7]

Reviewed sources

Federal Election Commission 63.6/100

Federal campaign-finance authority. FEC commission decisions and congressional member votes are different records.

Find and contact 25: ZIP and district filters lead to election records and incumbent context. Official constituent-contact routing was not verified. [1] [2]
Bills and amendments 50: Legislative histories and bill links cover selected campaign-finance laws. [3]
Recorded votes 0: The reviewed services cover commission decisions and elections. No congressional member roll-call lookup was verified. [1]
Campaign money 100: Search receipts, spending, loans, committees, independent expenditures and source filings. [1] [2]
Lobbying and interests 50: Lobbyist-bundling disclosures and respondent-specific enforcement records are searchable. These cover a defined subset of interests and conduct. [4] [5]
Budgets and spending 50: Presidential public-funding records cover a specific public expenditure program. [6]
Elections and candidates 75: Federal candidate records and state-certified results span primaries and general elections; state offices provide ballot administration. [7]
Tracking and follow-up 75: Filings, information requests and campaign updates have alert options. [1] [2]
Sources and methods 100: The OpenFEC API identifies original filings and documents transaction definitions. [8]
Historical coverage 100: Federal campaign and compiled election records span decades, with results publications back to 1982. [7]
Public access and ease of use 75: Public filters, CSV and bulk downloads are extensive. Reading filing codes still takes specialist knowledge. [1] [8]

Reviewed sources

LegiScan 61.4/100

Free and paid features are distinguished. Paid accounts were not purchased.

Find and contact 75: Sponsor rosters give officials’ districts, phones and contact routes. [1]
Bills and amendments 100: Bill records combine text editions, amendments and timelines with cross-jurisdiction search. [2]
Recorded votes 75: Bill histories link chamber rolls and individual positions. Historical analysis is a stronger specialty at Voteview. [3]
Campaign money 25: Legislator research links refer readers to external campaign-finance resources. [4]
Lobbying and interests 25: Research links hand off to organizations covering outside interests. I found no native general disclosure search in the sampled records. [4]
Budgets and spending 50: Bills can carry fiscal documents from publishing agencies. This includes state fiscal notes; federal award tracking was outside the examples. [5]
Elections and candidates 25: Member research links hand off to electoral profiles. Candidate and ballot comparisons were outside the verified tools. [4]
Tracking and follow-up 75: Free tracking supports up to 50 bills and three keyword alerts, with broader and faster alerts on paid plans. [6]
Sources and methods 75: The bill pages preserve official documents and action histories. Publisher coverage varies by jurisdiction. [2] [5]
Historical coverage 75: Federal datasets extend to the 111th Congress alongside state archives; bulk access requires login. [7]
Public access and ease of use 75: Core records are public. Tracking, downloads and higher-volume workflows have account or plan limits. [6] [7]

Reviewed sources

Vote Smart 61.4/100

Public pages and official PDFs were inspected. The legacy account portal challenged automated access. Future tools received no credit.

Find and contact 75: Find Officials and public profiles identify officeholders, candidates and contact information. [1]
Bills and amendments 50: Selected votes include bill text and summaries. The reviewed service focuses on key measures. [2] [3]
Recorded votes 75: Issue-based key votes and a published alignment methodology support comparisons across officials. [3] [4]
Campaign money 75: Profiles provide candidate contributions and finance summaries; a transaction-level ledger was not established. [3]
Lobbying and interests 25: Interest-group ratings provide indirect context; a personal filing or lobbying search was not verified. [3]
Budgets and spending 25: Budget-related key votes provide context; a project or fiscal-cost lookup was not verified. [3]
Elections and candidates 75: Nationwide candidate profiles and Political Courage Test responses support election research. Responses depend on participating candidates. [1] [3]
Tracking and follow-up 50: Candidate tracking is listed and newsletters exist. Account-based alert delivery was not tested. [5]
Sources and methods 75: The research guide and key-vote methodology explain selection and scoring. [2] [3] [4]
Historical coverage 75: Candidate reporting spans decades; legislative votes are curated. [6]
Public access and ease of use 75: Basic profile lookup and hotline help are public. Some extras require membership, and the legacy account portal challenged automated access. [2] [5]

Reviewed sources

Congressional Budget Office 52.3/100

Budget authority. A low score outside its mandate carries no judgment about the reliability of a budget estimate.

Find and contact 0: No constituent office finder verified in the reviewed CBO tools. [1]
Bills and amendments 50: Searchable estimates name bills, stages and provisions; they do not provide a general bill-edition history. [1] [2]
Recorded votes 0: Bills under consideration are described, but a member roll-call lookup was not verified. [1]
Campaign money 25: Analyses of donor legislation offer context without a candidate transaction search. [3]
Lobbying and interests 25: Estimates can explain legislation about lobbying disclosure without exposing individual filings. [4]
Budgets and spending 100: Version-specific cost estimates cover spending, revenue, mandates, assumptions and uncertainty. [1] [2]
Elections and candidates 25: Election legislation receives budget analysis; a candidate or voter guide was not verified. [5]
Tracking and follow-up 75: Topic subscriptions and publication digests support monitoring. No individual bill-triggered alert was verified. [6] [7]
Sources and methods 100: Original estimates, baselines, assumptions and uncertainty are explained in publications and methodological guidance. [2] [8]
Historical coverage 100: Historical budget tables extend to 1962, and previous projection vintages go back decades. [8]
Public access and ease of use 75: Searchable estimates, guides and downloadable budget series are public. Technical material calls for fiscal literacy. [1] [8]

Reviewed sources

Voteview 47.7/100

Find and contact 50: Profiles identify members and represented districts. The sample did not provide a direct office-contact workflow. [1]
Bills and amendments 25: A roll can identify its bill and question; the core data is the vote, not a bill-edition reader. [2]
Recorded votes 100: Positions, comparisons, maps and downloadable data cover congressional roll-call history. [2] [3]
Campaign money 0: No campaign transaction or donor lookup verified in the member, search or data pages. [1] [4]
Lobbying and interests 0: No lobbying or personal-disclosure search verified in those pages. [1] [4]
Budgets and spending 25: Budget questions can be found through roll subject codes; no cost/award workflow was verified. [2] [4]
Elections and candidates 25: Member records describe election or selection to office, with little race or ballot guidance. [5]
Tracking and follow-up 25: Shareable searches/roll records can be revisited; a personal change-alert workflow was not found. [4]
Sources and methods 100: Published codebooks, source-page references, citations and data downloads make analyses reproducible. [2] [6]
Historical coverage 100: The database spans congressional roll calls from the earliest Congresses. [3] [6]
Public access and ease of use 75: Public filters and downloads are useful; interpreting specialized voting metrics requires familiarity with the method. [4] [6]

Reviewed sources

USAspending.gov 38.6/100

Federal spending source. Award obligations and campaign contributions are distinct money flows.

Find and contact 0: District geography filters awards. I found no resident-to-office lookup in the reviewed search. [1]
Bills and amendments 25: Funding codes can identify enacted authorities. Bill editions and amendment histories were outside the reviewed records. [2]
Recorded votes 0: No individual congressional votes verified in the award search or documentation. [1]
Campaign money 0: The money tracked is government funding; no campaign contribution search was verified. [1]
Lobbying and interests 0: No registered lobbying or personal financial-disclosure workflow verified in the reviewed sources. [1]
Budgets and spending 100: Prime awards, recipients, districts, transactions, subawards and federal accounts distinguish obligations from outlays. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Elections and candidates 0: No ballot or candidate lookup verified in search or the spending guide. [1]
Tracking and follow-up 50: Shareable saved search links enable a manual return to the same filters; a change alert for that selection was not verified. [5]
Sources and methods 100: The data guide documents definitions, submissions, certification, gaps and differences between award and account data. [2] [3] [4] [6]
Historical coverage 75: Advanced search generally begins with FY2008. Some award downloads go further back; account data and outlays have different start dates. [2]
Public access and ease of use 75: Free search, downloads, API and guided examples are available. Fiscal terminology creates a learning curve. [1] [3] [6]