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Frequently Asked Questions

How does a legislative scorecard work?

Organizations choose bills that align with their interests and enter a positive, negative or neutral rating for each bill. Depending on how a legislator votes on a bill, they receive positive, negative or zero points. Then we divide the points possible by the points they received and assign a score for the legislator.

Learn more about How to Build a Legislative Scorecard

Why do advocacy groups use legislative scorecards?

Scorecards make it easy to understand what’s happening in your state and congressional legislatures. They turn complex bills and voting records into simple, easy-to-read summaries — so you can see what’s being proposed and how your legislators are voting.

With over 100,000 bills introduced in state legislatures and over 17,000 bills introduced in congress every year, no one has time to track them all. That’s where scorecards come in. They help voters quickly identify which legislation matters most to them and which lawmakers share their values — making it easier to dig deeper, reach out to legislators, or make informed choices at the ballot box.

What features are included?

We’re constantly rolling out new features to make our scorecards more powerful, flexible and easy to use. Examples include:

Customizable Scoring

  • Customizable scoring formulas: adjustments are available for Absents and Sponsorships
  • Choose from multiple scoring outputs: Vote Index, Vote Index with Bonus, Total Score, or Letter Grades
  • Single-session or Lifetime Scoring options
  • Color coded scoring

Find Your Representative

  • Search for your representatives by address
  • Filter representatives by party, chamber, name, and score

Legislator Features

  • Voting record
  • Official legislator headshots
  • Current legislator contact info
  • Printable, black and white legislator voting records as PDFs. See Rep. Rick Krajewski's profile on ACLU-PA's scorecard and his corresponding printable PDF for an example.
  • Ability to show or hide: Bill Number, Bill Name, Bill Score, Your Comments, Date, Motion, Categories, Your Position, Vote information.

Learn more about our scorecard features.

How many years do you have data for?

If you use our Bring Your Own Data feature, we should be able to accommodate however many sessions you have data for.

If you use BillTrack50, we can have data from 2011 onward, since that is when their data begins.

Can I use this without a BillTrack50 subscription?

Yes, we're launching a Bring Your Own Data feature! We're currently testing with data from our clients, so be sure to contact us for early access.

Is this plugin only for WordPress sites?

Currently, yes. However, we can create a hosted WordPress microsite that houses the scorecard, if you’d like to use it. Also, we are actively working on integrating this into other platforms as well with a goal of releasing those in 2026. If you would like to request a platform, please contact us.

How are you affiliated with BillTrack50

While we get feedback and input from BillTrack50, we are separate entities.

BillTrack50 focuses on legislation tracking. So they are a high-quality, optional legislation data source. Their specialty is legislative tracking, so they are your database and backend for all bills and votes data. They include legislation updates 2x per day, alert you daily of legislation changes, and aggregate legislation data from various sources.

We specialize in turning legislation data into legislative scorecards. When you use BillTrack50, we pull in your bills and votes data from their platform and display it on your website. We provide features, like: Find Your Legislator, search and filtering, and official legislator headshots that they don’t provide.

How are you affiliated with the Find My Legislator tool?

We own, build and maintain a free version of the Find My Legislator tool for all citizens to use.

How are you affiliated with National Voter Registration Day?

We are Community Partners. As Partners, we volunteer our time and resources to help others register to vote or update their voter registration.

To learn more about National Voter Registration Day's impact, view their Annual Reports.

Do you offer discounts?

Yes, we offer Nationwide Coverage pricing for organizations that need multiple scorecards.

Can I print legislator pages?

Yes, our legislator pages output to black and white PDFs for easy printing. To see an example, go to Rep. Cheryl Acton, right-click the page, click Print. Save as a PDF.

Best legislative scorecard examples

ACLU Pennsylvania

State Scorecard with Lifetime Scoring

Using our scorecard software, this scorecard does a great job of showing how to utilize Bill Comments with links and Categories.

AFL-CIO

Congressional Scorecard

This scorecard shows lifetime vs session score in a nice graph format.

Americans for Prosperity

Congressional Scorecard with Lifetime Scoring

Our partner since 2021, this scorecard includes a state map and legislator biographies.

Human Rights Campaign

Congressional Scorecard

If you're looking for a PDF-only option, this is an easy-to-scan format.

I'd like to report an accessibility issue.

Please do! If you have feedback, questions or need assistance regarding accessibility on legislativescorecard.us or on any of our Legislative Scorecards, we are available to assist and provide guidance through the communication method that works best for you. Our team is available during regular business hours and your request will be answered as promptly as possible.

[email protected]
(720) 515-0993
Monday-Friday 9am-5pm MST

See our Accessibility Statement for additional information.

Can you build a Canadian Legislative Scorecard?

Yes. It's currently used in the United States, but would be fairly easy for us to set up for Canada too. Contact us and we'll see what we can do!

What company runs this service?

The Legislative Scorecard is built and maintained by Revive Design Studios, LLC. We're a team of web developers based in Denver, Colorado. You can visit our parent company website at https://revivestudios.io for more info.

From single-state and congressional scorecards to nationwide campaigns — built to scale.