Frequently Asked Questions
What Purple Voice is, where the data comes from, and how to use it.
What Purple Voice is, where the data comes from, and how to use it.
What it is and who is behind it.
A neutral civic data site that tracks every member of the U.S. Congress, every bill and every roll-call vote, plus campaign finance and lobbying filings. Every record links to its official source.
Purple Voice is independently operated and supported by advertising. It does not take funding from political parties, PACs or partisan organizations.
No. Purple Voice does not endorse candidates, parties or policies, and does not rate or score legislators. It publishes the record as the official sources report it. The rules are on Editorial Standards.
No.
Where the numbers come from.
Bills and votes come from Congress.gov, the House Clerk and the Senate. Campaign finance comes from the Federal Election Commission and lobbying reports from the Senate Office of Public Records. The full list is on Sources.
Bills and roll-call votes are imported daily. Campaign finance updates weekly and lobbying reports quarterly. The schedule for each dataset is on Methodology.
Formats are standardized for display, such as dates and name capitalization. Vote outcomes, dollar amounts and bill text are not altered.
No. Purple Voice covers the U.S. Congress only.
Finding members, votes and comparisons.
Use Find Your State, or search by name or state in the member directory.
Yes. Congress Compare puts two members side by side.
A vote where each member’s position is recorded by name. Voice votes are not recorded individually, so they do not appear in the vote data. See recent votes and the glossary.
Yes, with a link back to the page you used. For a specific vote or filing, also cite the official record that page links to.
How to reach Purple Voice.
Send the page link and a link to the official record through the contact form. Confirmed errors are corrected and logged on Corrections.
Use the contact form.