FAQ

Our goal is an engaged public. Most people never read a bill, let alone form an opinion on one before it's already law — Roll Call closes that gap by turning it into something you can do in a few minutes. Because the site hands you a real, editable message and a direct line to your Senators, that attention doesn't have to stop at a poll. An engaged, informed constituency showing up in real inboxes is exactly the kind of pressure representative democracy depends on.

Roll Call lets you read real bills before Congress and vote Yea, Nay, or Present on them yourself — like you held a seat. It's an informal public opinion poll, not an official government platform.

No. Roll Call is an independent, unofficial project. It isn't affiliated with the U.S. Congress, the Library of Congress, or Congress.gov.

This is more of an informal survey, but the data could be used to inform lawmakers of public opinion.

No — it's a self-selected straw poll among whoever visits the site, not a random or representative sample. Treat the tallies as a temperature check, not a scientific survey.

Directly from Congress.gov's public API — the same official source journalists and congressional staff use. A bill's snapshot reflects that day's data, not necessarily this exact moment.

No, you can pick and choose which ones you want to.

Feel free to just vote Present.

Voting unlocks after you open a bill's details and confirm you've read it. It's a small speed bump meant to encourage actually reading the summary before you weigh in.

Yes. Just pick a different option — it swaps your existing vote instead of adding a new one, so you're never double-counted.

It means you don't have a strong opinion, or don't feel informed enough to say Yea or Nay — the same option actual Members of Congress use.

Bills are real, active legislation pulled from Congress.gov. Issues are petition-style topics that aren't tied to a specific bill — you add your support with one click, then can draft a message to your own Senators about it, the same way you would for a bill.

Enter your ZIP code on a bill or issue's page, and Roll Call shows your two Senators alongside an editable, pre-written message about that specific bill or issue, plus a link to each Senator's official contact page. It's copy-and-paste rather than a one-click "send" button — Senate offices don't publish direct email addresses, so there's no way for the site to actually deliver a message on your behalf. This only covers Senators, not your House Representative, since a ZIP code reliably maps to a state but not always to a single congressional district.

It moves from the homepage to the Became Law archive. Its vote tally and page stick around — nothing gets deleted.

Yes — look for "Share this bill" on the card. Each bill has its own link, separate from the homepage, so anyone you share it with lands directly on that bill, ready to vote and reach out to their own Senators, instead of a long list they'd have to search through. The preview shown on social media uses that bill's own title and description.

Yes — it's live at Play The Game. It walks you through the whole Roll Call process — reading a bill, voting on it, and sharing it — while you jump over obstacles like snakes and fire along the way.

And you will — when you do, you drop into a deeper level of the tutorial instead of just losing, so a mistake teaches you more about reading, voting, and sharing a bill rather than just sending you back to the start.

Because direct democracy is more fun when it doesn't feel like homework. The game is a lighter, faster on-ramp into the same read-vote-share loop as the rest of the site.

Yes — it's called Democracy is Here ("Roll Call, out loud"), exploring important issues facing Congress and all Americans.

Full episodes are coming soon. In the meantime, a few draft episodes are already up on the site — check back for the official launch.

Yes, absolutely — no personal information is collected or stored. This is a completely anonymous survey.

An optional word or phrase you choose so your votes and support follow you across browsers and devices, without ever creating an account or password. Look for the "Magic Code" pill in the nav bar.

There's no way to recover it — it isn't tied to an email or account, so nobody, including us, can look it up. If you forget it, that browser just goes back to voting anonymously under a fresh identity.

Yes — anyone who knows your Magic Code can load the same profile, so keep it private the same way you'd guard a shared password.

Only as a one-way cryptographic hash alongside each vote, which can't be reversed back into your actual IP address. It exists purely to catch obvious abuse (the same handful of IPs voting hundreds of times) and is never shown anywhere on the site. See the Privacy page for the full details.