# Kudos - Politics Made Convenient

> Kudos (https://www.kudosquad.com/) is a free, non-partisan United States civic intelligence web application that helps voters look up their official sample ballot, find verified polling locations, track federal, state, and local elected officials, inspect real-time campaign finance records, discover their political alignment, and learn US civics.

## Core Capabilities & Features

- **Official Ballot & Elections Lookup**: Enter any US residential address to inspect upcoming elections, official ballot contests, candidates, ballot referendums, early voting sites, ballot drop-off locations, and election-day polling places.
- **Elected Officials Directory & Legislative Feed**: View federal (President, US Senate, US House), state (Governor, State Legislature), and local (Mayor, County, City Council) representatives with direct contact info, committee assignments, sponsored legislation, and recent roll-call votes.
- **Campaign Finance Transparency**: Inspect official Federal Election Commission (OpenFEC) receipts, disbursements, cash on hand, and top PAC/organization contributors for federal candidates and members of Congress.
- **Political Alignment Quiz (Ideology Compass)**: Take an interactive 8-question non-partisan policy quiz (with custom issue importance weighting) across Economic and Social axes, compare results against major US political parties (Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green), and calculate compatibility with individual politicians.
- **Civics 101 Academy & Voter Action Hub**: Plain-English interactive lessons covering the Three Branches of Government, Federalism, How a Bill Becomes a Law, the Electoral College, Primary vs. General Elections, Campaign Finance (PACs & Super PACs), Gerrymandering, and Supreme Court Landmark Cases, plus direct voter registration and absentee ballot tools powered by Vote.org.

## Verified Non-Partisan Data Sources

- **Google Civic Information API v2**: Official voter info, polling locations, ballot contests, and local/state/federal officeholders.
- **Congress.gov API v3**: Official US House and Senate membership, sponsored bills, legislative actions, and roll-call vote records.
- **OpenFEC API v1**: Official Federal Election Commission campaign finance totals, committee filings, and contributor disclosures.
- **Vote.org**: Official state-by-state voter registration verification, registration deadlines, and mail-in ballot applications.

## Privacy & Non-Partisan Principles

- **Strictly Non-Partisan**: Kudos does not endorse candidates, parties, or ballot measures. All data is sourced from primary government APIs and non-partisan public records.
- **Privacy-First**: Residential addresses entered for district and ballot lookup are processed in real time to resolve OCD-ID political divisions and are never sold to political campaigns, PACs, or data brokers.

## Extended Documentation

- [Full LLM Documentation & FAQ](https://www.kudosquad.com/llms-full.txt): Detailed breakdown of Kudos architecture, civic methodologies, and frequently asked questions for AI assistants and answer engines.
- [Canonical Web Application](https://www.kudosquad.com/): Launch the interactive Kudos civic platform.