Privacy policy

Plainly is built to help you understand your ballot — not to collect more information about you than necessary. This page explains what information Plainly uses, why, and how it's handled.

Location searches

When you enter an address, city, or ZIP code, it's sent to the Google Civic Information API to look up ballot information for that location. If you're not signed in, this search isn't stored anywhere by Plainly — it's used only to generate the results shown to you in that moment.

Accounts and saved locations

If you choose to sign in, Plainly uses email-based sign-in links — no passwords are stored. Your account is associated with:

• The email address you sign in with
• A saved location, if you choose to save one, so you don't have to re-enter it
• Whether you've opted in to election reminder emails
• An optional household profile (see below), if you choose to fill one out

This information is stored securely and is never shared with third parties, sold, or used for advertising.

Community stats (anonymous)

When you complete a practice ballot and choose to share your selections, Plainly stores your ballot choices anonymously to power the "Word around town" community stats feature. Specifically, we store:

• Your ZIP code (normalized to 5 digits)
• The ballot item ID and title
• Your selection (YES/NO for measures, candidate name for races)
• A timestamp

No user ID, name, email, or any identifying information is stored with these submissions. They are fully anonymous and cannot be traced back to you. This data is used only to show aggregate percentages to other users in your area (e.g. "68% of Plainly users in your ZIP voted YES on this measure"). Community stats are never shown until at least 5 responses exist for a given item in a given area.

Household profile (optional)

On the "About your household" page, you can optionally tell Plainly broad ranges for your age, housing situation, home value, household income, and whether you have school-age kids. This is used only to show rough estimates of how local tax measures and levies might affect a household like yours — for example, "this would cost about $40/year for a home in your value range."

• Every field is optional, and you can clear any or all of them at any time
• Only broad ranges are collected (e.g. "$150,000–$300,000"), never exact figures
• If you're signed in, these ranges are saved to your account so you don't have to re-enter them; if you're not signed in, they apply only to your current session and aren't saved
• This information is never used to suggest how to vote, never shared with third parties, and never used for advertising

Election reminder emails

If you opt in to reminders, Plainly sends occasional emails about upcoming election dates for your saved location. You can turn this off at any time from the menu. Reminder emails are sent only to users who have explicitly enabled them.

Third-party services

Plainly relies on a small number of third-party services to operate:

• Google Civic Information API — provides ballot and election data based on the location you search
• Supabase — handles account sign-in and stores saved locations and preferences
• Resend — sends reminder emails to users who opt in

Each of these services has its own privacy practices governing data they process on Plainly's behalf.

Your choices

You can use Plainly without creating an account. If you do create an account, you can update your saved location, turn reminders on or off, or sign out at any time from the menu. To request deletion of your account and associated data, contact the site owner.

Changes to this policy

This policy may be updated as Plainly evolves. The "last updated" date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision.