Straw polls
On every race on a ballot, signed-in CivicGate members can answer one question: how would you vote here? It's a running, member-sourced read on a race — never a real vote. Find them on your ballot.
What a straw poll is
- A non-binding answer to "how would I vote in this race" — nothing more.
- Open to signed-in CivicGate members only. Signed-out readers can see the running count but can't answer.
- Scoped to one contest — one specific race on a ballot (a Senate seat, a House seat, a ballot measure), not to the election as a whole.
- Live, and updates the moment a member answers, changes, or withdraws their answer.
What it is not
Stated plainly, because a bar chart next to candidate names looks like other things it isn't:
- Not a real vote. It has no legal effect, is not cast on any ballot, and is never sent to an election official or any government system.
- Not a poll of the electorate. It reflects only the CivicGate members who chose to answer — not a scientific sample, and not representative of who will actually vote.
- Not a prediction or forecast. A lopsided count says nothing about who is likely to win.
- Not colored by party on purpose. The bars are neutral, not red/blue — a party-colored bar reads as a projected result, and this is a count of answers, not a projection.
How to use it
- One answer per contest. A ballot usually holds several races — each has its own separate straw poll.
- Change your mind any time. You can switch your answer to a different candidate, or withdraw it entirely, right up until election day.
- Closes on election day, server-side. Answering isn't just hidden in the page — CivicGate's servers refuse a new or changed answer once the election has passed, on the same rule that decides what the page shows as open.
- The count stays visible after the election, marked closed and final. CivicGate doesn't hold official election results, so nothing here says who actually won.
The exact timing rules
- A contest with no linked election date has no window CivicGate can confirm is open, so answering it is refused rather than guessed at.
- Election day itself still counts as open — the poll doesn't close a day early.
- The check that decides "open" is the same one used for reading the count and for accepting an answer, so what you see on the page is what the server will actually accept.
- Your first answer's timestamp is kept even after you change your mind, so "answered early and stuck with it" stays distinguishable from "answered last night" in CivicGate's own records — nothing about that is shown publicly.
Anonymity
- Nobody can see who answered what. The tally only ever shows a count and a percentage per candidate — there is no feature or query anywhere on CivicGate that lists individual members' answers.
- Your own answer is marked — you'll see "Your answer" next to your pick — but that's because it's yours; nobody else sees that label on your account.
- Every candidate in the race is shown, including ones with zero answers, so the count isn't quietly trimmed down to only the popular choices.
Why it's useful
- A running, member-sourced read on a race before any results exist.
- A way to see where interest sits across CivicGate's membership, race by race.
- A way to compare your own view against other engaged members.
- A reason to look at every contest on a ballot — not just the one or two races you already had an opinion on.
Where to find them
- Every contest on a ballot has its own "Straw poll" section, right where the candidates are listed.
- Start at your ballot — built from where you've told CivicGate you live.
- Haven't set that yet, or want to check a different address? Set it at your place.
- Looking for a specific race rather than your own ballot? Browse elections.