Awesome Citizen

A curated list of awesome tools, libraries, and other citizen empowering resources.

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Contents

• US Constitution
• US Elections
• US Federal
• Whistleblowers
• Open Government & Transparency
• Money in Politics
• Census & Demographics
• Police Accountability
• Civic Tech & Tools

US Constitution

• The National Constitution Center - Interactive Constitution, learn about the text, history, and meaning of the U.S. Constitution from leading scholars.
• The National Archives: The Constitution of the United States - Transcription of the Constitution as it was inscribed by Jacob Shallus on parchment.

US Elections

Voter Registration

• Vote.org - Register to vote.
• USA.gov voter registration and confirmation - Register to vote and access voting resources.

Voting Rights: Intimidation

• ACLU Voter Intimidation resources (PDF)

Election Data

• Federal Election Commission Bulk Data
• Federal Election Commission Campaign Finance Bulk Data
• MIT Election Data + Science Lab - Academic datasets on elections.
• OpenElections - Certified election results for all 50 states.

Voting and Registration; Voter Turnout

• U.S. Census Current Population Survey

Federal Elections

• 270toWin - Maps of electoral college votes back to 1789. Also includes voting history and trends by state.
• American Presidency Project: Presidential Elections Data - Presidential election data from 1789-present.
• Official state-by-state vote counts in federal elections from 1920 through 2014 from the U.S. House of Representatives.
• Electoral College Historical Election Votes

Voter Guides

• Ballotpedia - Nonpartisan, nonprofit encyclopedia of American politics and elections.
• Vote411 - Election information (ballots, registration, and more) by The League of Women Voters Education Fund.

Polls and Studies

• Pew Research Center - Nonpartisan fact tank on issues, attitudes, and trends shaping America and the world.
• Gallup - Polling and analytics company tracking public opinion on politics.
• American National Election Studies - Data from the American National Election Studies.

APIs

• Google Civic Information API - Election and voter information for U.S. addresses.
• US Vote Foundation Civic Data API - Comprehensive voting methods and election official data.

US Federal

Executive

Executive Orders

• Federal Register - CSV, JSON, and HTML tables available for all orders since 1994.

Legislative

Find Your Representatives

• U.S. House of Representatives Lookup - Official House of Representatives website.
• U.S. Senate - Official Senate website.

Communication Tools

• Contact Congress - Open data format for Congressional contact forms.
• 5 Calls - Calling is the most effective way to influence your representative.
• Resistbot - Turns your texts into faxes, postal mail, or emails to your representatives–delivered in minutes.

Legislation Tracking

• Congress.gov - Official website for U.S. federal legislative information.
• GovTrack - Track bills, votes, and activities of the United States Congress.

APIs

• Congress.gov API - Official API for bills, members, votes, and Congressional Record.
• Voteview - Congressional roll-call votes and ideology scores since 1789.

Interests

• List of Congressional Committees - Committees of the U.S. Congress.

Judicial

• CourtListener RECAP Archive - Free searchable archive of PACER documents.
• Free.Law - Free legal research tools including Supreme Court data.
• PACER - Public Access to Court Electronic Records for federal courts.

APIs

• Supreme Court Data in Bulk and Via a REST API - Access Supreme Court decisions and metadata in bulk or via REST API.

Whistleblowers

Leaking Documents and Media

• How easy is it to securely leak information to some of America's top news organizations? This easy - Contains a list of Tor Addresses and SecureDrop URLs.
• How to Leak to the Intercept - Similar to above, but also contains tips on how to protect your own security.
• Send a confidential news tip to the New York Times

Open Government & Transparency

• Data.gov - Federal government's central open data portal with datasets from all agencies.
• Federal Register - Daily journal of the US Government with proposed rules and notices.
• FOIA.gov - Central portal for Freedom of Information Act requests to federal agencies.
• MuckRock - Platform to file, track, and share public records requests.
• Office of Government Ethics - Executive branch ethics guidance and financial disclosures.
• Oversight.gov - Federal Inspector General reports, audits, and investigations.
• Regulations.gov - Search and comment on federal regulations and proposed rules.
• USAspending.gov - Official source for federal spending data including contracts, grants, and loans.

Money in Politics

• OpenSecrets - Tracks money in US politics, campaign finance, and lobbying data.
• OpenSecrets Lobbying Data - Federal lobbying spending and lobbyist information.
• ProPublica Campaign Finance API - Real-time campaign finance data.
• ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer - IRS Form 990 data on tax-exempt organizations.

Census & Demographics

• American Community Survey - Detailed demographic data updated annually.
• Census Data API - APIs for population, demographics, economic, and housing data.
• data.census.gov - Explore and download Census Bureau statistics.

Police Accountability

• Mapping Police Violence - Database of police killings in the US.
• The Policing Project - Resources on police accountability and transparency.
• Vera Institute Police Transparency Index - Rates police data transparency by jurisdiction.

Civic Tech & Tools

• awesome-civic - Curated list of civic tech tools and libraries.
• Code for America - Network building government technology.
• Decidim - Participatory democracy platform used by governments worldwide.