Privacy Policy

Effective Date: October 6, 2026

At a Glance

We collect what we need to run the platform: account information, the civic actions you take here, and what you choose to share with Congress.
We never sell your personal information. We never share it for advertising. We don't build marketing profiles.
We use Google Analytics to understand site usage and AI services to moderate content you submit. Details below.
You can update your profile or delete your account from your Settings page, and you can request a copy of your information by contacting us. State privacy rights are honored.
If you delete your account before choosing how to take part, it's deleted right away. Once you've joined, deleting your account starts a 14-day window. Your account closes right away, but nothing is erased until the window ends — and a link in your confirmation email cancels the deletion and restores your account. After the window, your profile is deleted and your votes and comments are separated from your identity; messages you sent to Congress are kept as they were sent. Some information persists in backups for up to 14 days before natural purge.

Who We Are

AmericanVoters.US is a civic engagement platform built and operated by SeniorsUnited, Inc., a 501(c)(4) nonprofit civic organization. When this policy says "we" or "our," it means AmericanVoters and the SeniorsUnited team running it.

We exist to help people understand legislation and communicate with their elected representatives. Your information is used only to support that mission.

What We Collect

Account Information

What we keep depends on how you choose to take part, which you pick on your profile:

Just keep me posted. We keep only your email address, to send you updates.
Follow and vote on bills. We keep your email address, display name, state and congressional district, plus any optional profile questions you choose to answer. To suggest addresses as you type and find your district, we send your home address to Smarty, our address-verification provider; we keep only the state and district it returns. We do not store your address.
Follow, vote and message Congress. In addition, we keep:
- Name (salutation, first, last). Used to personalize the platform and ensure respectful messaging when contacting public officials.
- Phone number. Required, with your name and address, by congressional messaging systems.
- Street address with ZIP. Required by congressional messaging systems on every message to verify that it comes from an actual constituent, so at this level we keep it and use it only to deliver your messages and identify your district.
Switching back. You can switch from messaging Congress to following and voting at any time on your profile. When you do, we delete your name, phone and street address. Messages you already sent keep the name and address they were sent with.
Email address. At every level, used for account-related notifications, recovery, and the updates you choose to receive.
Optional profile fields you choose to provide. Avatar image, political party preference, age range, and the other optional questions on your profile.

Account Confirmations

You provide these in your profile:

That you are at least 16 years old
If you choose to message Congress: that the address you provided is your primary home address (we use it to identify your congressional district and to verify you as a constituent when contacting your representatives)
If you choose to message Congress: that you authorize AmericanVoters to deliver messages to Congress on your behalf
Your agreement to this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use
Your understanding that misuse of the platform — such as impersonating someone, sending spam, or breaking our community rules — may result in permanently losing access

Your Civic Activity on the Platform

Bills you choose to follow
Concerns you share through Voice Your Concerns
Yes/no positions you take on bills
Comments and replies you post on bills
Vote reasons you choose to share
Messages you send to elected officials
Invitations you send to others to join the platform

Donations

If you make a contribution to AmericanVoters:

Your name and email address (collected by Stripe at checkout; we receive a copy)
Your contribution amount and frequency (one-time or monthly)
We do not store your payment card. Stripe processes payments and stores card data on their systems under their own terms.

Contributions to SeniorsUnited, Inc. are not tax-deductible for federal income tax purposes.

Refunds and Cancellations

Monthly contributions can be paused, changed, or cancelled at any time from the “Manage Subscription” link in your account menu (which opens the Stripe customer portal). Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period — you won’t be charged again after that.

One-time contributions are refundable for any reason within 30 days of the contribution date. To request a refund, use our Contact Us form and we’ll process it through Stripe. The refund typically appears on your card within 5–10 business days. After 30 days, contributions are non-refundable.

What We Do Not Collect

Social Security numbers
Driver's license numbers
Payment card numbers
Bank account numbers
Health information

Data Minimization

We collect only the information needed to operate the platform and support civic engagement. We intentionally avoid collecting personal data we don't need.

How We Use Your Information

Your information is used to:

Operate your account and the platform
Deliver messages from you to your representatives through official congressional channels
Show you bills and issues connected to what you care about
Send notifications about legislation you're following and platform updates
Improve the platform's usability and performance
Run the moderation systems described in the next section
Keep the platform secure and prevent abuse

We never sell your personal information. We never share it for advertising or for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not build marketing profiles or participate in ad networks.

AI Processing of Content You Submit

We use artificial intelligence services to moderate and route content you submit on the platform. Here is exactly what that means.

OpenAI processes text you submit on the following surfaces

Used to check for civility, compliance with our Community Guidelines, and to route content correctly:

Display name you choose for your account
Concerns you share through Voice Your Concerns
Positions and vote reasons you post on bills
Comments and replies you post on bills
Messages you compose for elected officials
Invitations you send (the recipient names and any personal note)

The platform also uses OpenAI to match bills to relevant issue categories so the right bills surface for your interests.

AWS Rekognition processes images you upload

Used to scan avatar images for prohibited content (graphic content, hate symbols, and similar). Images are analyzed at the moment of upload.

What is NOT processed by AI

The Contact Us form on this site
Your profile fields other than display name (name, email, address, phone, etc.) — these are validated, not AI-screened

How these providers handle your content

Per OpenAI's API terms, content submitted through their API is not used to train their models. OpenAI may retain content for a limited period for abuse monitoring. AWS Rekognition processes images at the moment of upload and does not retain them.

If AI flags your content

You will see a message in the platform explaining the issue, and you can edit and resubmit. If you believe a moderation decision was made in error, you can contact us.

Messages to Elected Officials

When you send a message to an elected official through AmericanVoters, the information required by congressional messaging systems — your name, your address (to verify you are a constituent), and your message text — is transmitted to the appropriate office. We use the U.S. House's Communicating with Congress (CWC) system, the Senate's SOAPBox system, or direct email where appropriate.

We do not control how congressional offices store, use, or respond to your messages once they are delivered.

Service Providers We Work With

To operate the platform, we work with a small set of trusted technology providers. Each receives only the information necessary to perform its specific function and is required to safeguard your data.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) — hosting, account authentication, database storage, file storage
Stripe — donation processing (Stripe stores your payment card; we do not)
Mailgun — outbound email delivery
Smarty — address suggestions as you type, and address verification and congressional-district lookup when you save your profile
Google Analytics 4 — aggregate site usage analytics
OpenAI — AI-powered content moderation and bill-to-issue classification (see AI section above)
AWS Rekognition — avatar image moderation
Communicating with Congress (CWC) and SOAPBox — congressional messaging systems used to route your messages to House and Senate offices

We do not allow these providers to use your information for their own marketing or any unrelated purpose.

Cookies and Site Analytics

We use cookies and similar technologies to operate the website and make it easier to use. Cookies are small files the site stores on your device.

What cookies we set

Session cookies for account sign-in. When you sign in, the site sets short-lived cookies (access_token, id_token, expires_at) that keep you signed in, and keeps a refresh token in your browser tab's session storage. These expire when your session ends or you sign out.
Site preference cookies. Remember your choices so the site works the way you expect it to.
Google Analytics cookies (_ga, _gid, _gat, and similar). Used for aggregate visitor analytics so we can understand how the site is used.

What our cookies do not do

We do not use cookies for advertising or to track you across other websites
We do not sell cookie data
We are not part of an ad network

How long cookies last

Session cookies: until you sign out or your session expires
Preference cookies: typically up to one year
Analytics cookies: typically up to two years (Google's standard)

Managing cookies

You can disable cookies at any time through your browser settings. Note that disabling all cookies will prevent the account sign-in flow from working. We have chosen to be transparent about cookies in this policy rather than show a consent prompt every time you visit.

Your Choices

You control what you share and how you participate. From your account Settings page, you can:

Update your name, address, email, phone, and other profile information
Manage your communication preferences and notification topics
Update your avatar
Delete your account (see "Account Deletion and Data Retention" below)

You can also unsubscribe from any emails we send via the link at the bottom of each email, or contact us with a question or request at any time.

Your State Privacy Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under your state's privacy laws.

If you are a resident of California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah (or another state with similar privacy law), you have the right to:

Know what personal information we have collected about you
Receive a copy of your personal information in a portable format
Correct inaccurate personal information
Delete your personal information (subject to legal exceptions for retained records like financial reporting and abuse prevention)
Opt out of any "sale" of your personal information. As stated above, we do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising — so there is nothing to opt out of in practice, but you have the right to make this request and we will confirm.

To exercise any of these rights, use your account Settings page where possible, or contact us using the link at the bottom of this page. We respond to verified requests within the timeframes required by law (typically 45 days, with one possible 45-day extension if needed).

Account Deletion and Data Retention

You can delete your account at any time from your Settings page, or by contacting us using the link at the bottom of this page.

How deletion works

Before you've joined: if you delete your account on your profile before choosing how to take part (or after choosing only to be kept posted), we delete it right away — your sign-in, your email address and anything you saved. There is nothing to hold for 14 days, so we don't.

After you've joined: deletion is not immediate, and that is deliberate — it gives you a way back if you change your mind or if someone else reaches your account.

When you confirm, your account closes right away: you are signed out and cannot sign back in. We then wait 14 days before erasing anything. During that window your information is still there, untouched, and the confirmation email we send you contains a link that cancels the deletion and restores your account. If you have an active monthly contribution, it stops at the end of the period you have already paid for, and cancelling the deletion restores it.

Once the 14 days pass, the erasure below runs and cannot be undone. It usually completes within a day of the window closing. We email you a receipt when it is finished.

What happens to each category

Profile information

Your name, email, phone, address (if you chose to message Congress), state and district, avatar, party preference, and topics of interest are deleted from our active systems once the 14-day window closes. This also covers the contact record we keep for sending you email, the tags on it, and the delivery and click records for emails we have sent you.

Civic activity

Your votes, vote reasons, comments, and replies are separated from your identity once the 14-day window closes. We preserve the activity itself so the civic record stays intact — your voice continues to count, just no longer attributable to you. Your bills followed and concerns selected are deleted entirely. (Both are personal interest signals rather than civic expression, so they go with your account rather than being kept.)

To be precise about what this is: we replace your account identifier with a consistent stand-in value rather than a random one. That means your former activity remains linkable to itself — a vote and a comment that were both yours can still be recognized as coming from the same person — but it is no longer linked to your name, email, or account. We do this so the civic record keeps its meaning: a hundred separate comments and a hundred comments from one person say very different things. We do not consider this the same as making the data fully anonymous, and we would rather say so than overstate it. (Messages you sent to Congress are different — see below.)

Messages to elected officials

Messages you sent are kept as part of our record of what was delivered on your behalf, including the name, address and contact details they were sent with, so we can show what was sent and that you authorized it. They are no longer linked to your account.

Donations

Once the window closes, we keep the donation amount and date for our own financial records, but your name is deleted and your email address is overwritten with a non-working stand-in so the record can no longer identify or reach you. Stripe keeps independent records of all donations they process; if you ever need a full record of your contributions, you can request it directly from Stripe.

Moderation records

When content is reviewed by our moderation systems, we record the decision along with the email address and display name held at that moment. These records are deleted with your account. Independently of deletion, all moderation records are erased after 90 days.

Backups

Information may persist in our secure backups for up to 14 days after deletion, as part of normal system operations. Backups are purged on a rolling schedule.

You can also request deletion by contacting us using the link at the bottom of this page.

Children's Privacy

AmericanVoters is intended for individuals 16 years of age or older. We rely on your confirmation at signup that you meet this requirement.

If we learn that someone under 16 has created an account or provided us with personal information, we will delete the account and any associated information.

Data Security

We use secure systems and reasonable technical safeguards to protect your information, including encryption in transit and at rest, access controls that limit what each part of the system can reach, and logging of activity on the platform. We review our security practices periodically, including a full review of our code and infrastructure in August 2026.

Access to personal data is limited to authorized SeniorsUnited staff or volunteers who require it to operate the platform.

While no system can guarantee absolute security, we take meaningful steps to protect your information from unauthorized access, loss, or misuse. If we ever experience a security incident that affects your personal information, we will notify you as required by applicable law.

Legal Compliance

We may disclose personal information when required by law or when necessary to respond to valid legal requests from government authorities.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as the platform evolves. When we make changes, we will update the Effective Date at the top of this page. For material changes, we will also notify you by email or through a notice on the site. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, how we collect or use your information, or you want to exercise any of the rights described above, please contact us.

Mail: SeniorsUnited, 254 Commercial St, Suite 245, Portland, ME 04101