Match: which counties’ federal officials vote the way you would?

Choose what matters to you

Mark each topic. In the next step you answer Yes, No or Skip on the laws of the topics you mark Important or Very important.

What the figure covers

• Federal officials only: the House member and the two senators. No state or county official is counted.
• Laws that passed, in this Congress: the 118 public laws of the 119th Congress in this record. A bill that did not become law is not counted.
• Recorded votes only: 61 of those laws have a recorded vote in at least one chamber: 60 in the House and 38 in the Senate. A chamber that passed a law by voice vote or without objection has no list of who voted how, so that law gives no figure for that chamber’s members.
• Counties in one state differ only by their House member. Both senators represent every county of their state.
• No judgment of what a vote means. The figure counts whether an official’s recorded vote is the same as your answer. Nothing else goes into it.

The formula

1. An official’s match = the weight of the laws where the official’s recorded vote is the same as your answer, divided by the weight of the laws where the official cast a recorded Yes or No. A law in a topic you mark Important counts 1. A law in a topic you mark Very important counts 2. A law in two of your topics counts once, at the higher weight.
2. Left out of an official’s count: a law you skip, a vote of Present, a vote the official did not cast, and a law the official’s chamber passed with no recorded vote. Each figure shows the number of votes it counts.
3. A county’s House figure = the match of each House member whose district covers part of the county, weighted by the share of the county’s people who live in that district.
4. A county’s match = one third the House figure, plus one third each senator.
5. A part with no figure (a vacant seat, or an official with no recorded Yes or No on the laws you answered) is left out, and the other parts are averaged. The row says so.