Terms Apply And Acceptance
These Privacy & Terms apply to guests and account holders. By accessing the site, running a search,
viewing results, requesting an account, signing in, using higher limits, submitting information, saving
settings or third-party lookup credentials, or exporting information, you agree to use How Vote lawfully and follow these
rules. If you do not agree, do not use the service.
Public-Record Research Only
How Vote is a privately operated public-record research tool for campaign-finance transparency. It is not a
government agency, campaign, committee, candidate, official filing system, legal adviser, financial adviser,
compliance adviser, consumer-reporting agency, background-check service, or identity-verification service.
Service outputs are public-record research aids, not government, legal, financial, compliance,
consumer-reporting, or identity-verification advice.
Official-Source Verification
Official records, source sites, APIs, filings, names, addresses, amounts, dates, committees, and links can
be incomplete, delayed, corrected, unavailable, rate-limited, or wrong. You are responsible for verifying
important information against official source documents before relying on it, publishing it, contacting
anyone, making a decision, or exporting it for downstream use.
Prohibited Misuse
Public availability does not mean unrestricted use. You may not use the service, source data, reports,
exports, account access, or results for harassment, stalking, doxxing, intimidation, unlawful
discrimination, spam, unlawful solicitation, prohibited commercial use, scraping or bulk abuse, rate-limit
evasion, false account data, source restriction evasion, or violation of FEC and state source restrictions,
platform rules, law, or another person's rights.
Accounts, Access Review, And Limits
Account access and higher limits are discretionary and may require accurate profile information, intended-use
information, verified email, current Privacy & Terms acceptance, account communications acceptance, and
administrator review. We may approve, deny, limit, suspend, revoke, throttle, restore, or review access based on
account status, source availability, security, support needs, suspected misuse, inaccurate information,
compliance concerns, or service operations.
Privacy Notice: Information Collected
-
Search and public-record inputs. We may process donor, report, committee, state, date,
export, queue, third-party source research, and official-source lookup inputs needed to provide requested features.
-
Account, provider, and consent records. If you sign in, request higher limits, or contact
support, we may collect email, provider identity data, display name, full name, phone number, organization,
role, city, state, website, intended use, support messages, current acceptance records, communications
notice choices, review status, and related account activity.
-
User-provided lookup credentials, support records, and payment status. If you provide a third-party
lookup key or similar credential, it may be used for requested lookups and, where signed-in saving is
enabled, stored securely with your account for reuse, support, review, and abuse-prevention purposes.
Authorized administrative account records and exports may show saved lookup credentials and related
metadata where applicable. Payment links may send you to Stripe-hosted payment pages; this site does not
store full card numbers.
-
Technical and activity metadata. We may process IP address, browser, device, session,
rate-limit, security, and activity metadata; timestamps; request metadata; signed guest legal acceptance records;
browser-local acknowledgements; browser-local cache state; and logs needed for service operation.
How Information Is Used
We may collect, use, disclose, retain, review, monitor, process, export, and preserve information as
described in these Privacy & Terms, including to provide requested features, process searches, maintain
accounts, review access, enforce limits, provide support, communicate with you, prevent misuse, investigate
security or abuse issues, comply with law, protect rights and safety, maintain records, support recovery and
continuity, improve reliability, and develop or improve the service.
Operator And Service-Provider Access
Authorized service administrators may review, export, process, preserve, and use service, account, activity,
source, support, security, consent, and saved-key records as needed to operate, support, secure,
troubleshoot, improve, enforce, recover, administer, and protect the service; review accounts and access
requests; investigate misuse or security issues; comply with law; and work with service providers.
Third-Party Providers And Official Sources
The service may use hosting and cloud providers, authentication providers, payment providers, official source
and API providers, security, logging, storage, email, support, and infrastructure providers. Official
Virginia campaign-finance pages, FEC resources, FEC/api.data.gov, Stripe-hosted pages, and other linked
providers operate under their own terms, policies, limits, and availability.
Retention, Choices, And Contact
Service, account, support, consent, activity, security, abuse-prevention, compliance, recovery, and
operational records are retained as needed for those purposes, subject to applicable law and operational
limits. You can sign out, clear browser-local cache where available, avoid saving optional keys, and contact
info@how.vote for support or privacy/account questions. Review or deletion
requests may be limited by legal, security, abuse-prevention, support, backup, recovery, and recordkeeping
needs.
Changes And Reacceptance
These Privacy & Terms may be updated from time to time by posting revised language. Material changes can
require renewed acceptance before continued account, higher-limit, saved-key, queue, or other signed-in use.
Guest browser acknowledgements may also be requested again after updates.
No Warranty And Responsibility For Use
-
The service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. To the fullest extent permitted by law,
we disclaim warranties of accuracy, completeness, timeliness, reliability, non-infringement,
merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, uninterrupted availability, source availability,
error-free operation, and suitability for your intended use.
-
You are responsible for your use of the service and outputs, including compliance with law, FEC rules,
state rules, source restrictions, provider terms, and these Privacy & Terms. To the fullest extent
permitted by law, the service operator and related parties are not liable for losses or claims arising from
source errors, outages, user misuse, prohibited contributor-data use, unlawful contact, exports, downstream
use, false account information, or inability to use the service.