Our Legislator Scoring Engine™ is proprietary software we developed to solve the complexity of scoring legislators based on legislative data points. 

What is the Legislator Scoring Engine™

Vote Index, Total Scores, or Letter Grading. For any of these options, you can also set color-coded scoring ranges.

Vote Index scores display as 0-100 in the scorecard. Scores less than 0 display as 0. Scores greater than 100 display as 100.

Vote Index with Bonus Scores display as 0-100+ in the scorecard. Scores less than 0 display as 0. Scores greater than 100 display as 100, 101, 102, etc.

Total Scores are the total number of points and can display as positive or negative scores in the scorecard.

Letter Grading is based on the Vote Index scores. We then calculate those into letter grades for you. You can choose any scoring range for any letter grade.

What total scoring options are included?

Most organizations award a specific number of points per legislative action. Example:

Absent for Voting: Many organizations throw out absent votes so they do not improve or hurt the legislator’s overall score.

Prime Sponsorship of in line bills +3 points

We may or may not be able to support “bonus points”, unless they are based on specific legislative actions which BillTrack50 has data for. Contact us for questions regarding your formula and we can help find out what’s possible.

What types of scoring formulas do you support?

We recommend keeping it as straightforward as possible to make it easy to understand for the general public. If you haven't published a scorecard before, something like the following is very effective and intuitive for most users:

0 points for bills you're neutral on or are monitoring

I've never had a scorecard before. What scoring should I use on my scorecard?

Yes. Let us know you'd like Lifetime Scoring and we will get that upgrade added for you. After the upgrade is complete, Lifetime scoring will display on each individual legislator’s page. See below for how this is laid out or view the  National Parks Action Fund’s 2023 Congressional Scorecard, International Justice Mission's Congressional Scorecard or the ACLU-PA’s scorecard for live examples.

Can you do Lifetime Scoring?

Yes. That’s done in your BillTrack50 account. Watch this video (starting at 5:43mins) to learn how.

Can I weight votes for a bill?

Yes! That’s also done in your BillTrack50 account. Watch this video (starting at 5:43mins) to learn how Bill Rating is separate from Sponsor Rating.

Note: Since that video was made, BillTrack50 has added another field that allows you to score Co-sponsorships in addition to Prime Sponsorships. 

Can I score Sponsorship of a bill?

Yes! That’s also done in your BillTrack50 account. You would just set the Sponsor Rating higher or lower than your other bill’s Sponsor Ratings. Watch this video (starting at 5:43mins) for an example.

Can I weight Sponsorship of a bill?

Yes. Most organizations who do this use Prime Sponsorship as a Bonus Point. However, you could also include Co-sponsorships as Bonus Points as well.

You'll want to be aware of how bonus points affect the outcome of the score. Using bonus points, it is possible that a legislator who takes negative actions would still get a score of 100. For example, if you're using Sponsorships as a Bonus Points:

Legislator voted in your favor 8 out of 10 times.

Can I use Sponsorships as Bonus Points?

Yes. By default, BillTrack50 applies your bill score to the last action on a bill. However, you can rate the motions or amendments individually instead. 

In this screenshot you can see that BillTrack50 gives you a list of all of the motions and amendments on a bill. Just change the dropdown to "Include" the actions you want and "Exclude" those you don't.

Watch this video to learn how to set this up properly.

Can I rate Motions and Amendments on bills?

Yes. It’s a custom scoring option, so please allot a few extra days in your timeline for our team to add it.

Can I factor in scores for only Prime Sponsors of a bill?

Yes. Watch this video to learn how to set this up properly.

Can I score votes and add Comments on specific Amendments?

Yes! You can do that within BillTrack50 and it will sync into our scorecard software within a max of 30 mins. Watch this video (starting at 5:13) to learn how.

Can I edit the Bill Names in my scorecard?

Yes! You will write Comments in your BillTrack50 account under the Bill in your Scorecard. Watch this video (starting at 6:29mins) to see how.

To add a link within your Bill Comment, like in the ACLU Pennsylvania scorecard, log into BillTrack50. Under Scorecard > Legislator (tab) > Edit bill > Reference URL add a link to the page about that bill. In the URL Text field, you’d add what you want the link text to show up as on the scorecard.

Can I write my own Comment for each bill?

Yes. In BillTrack50, open your scorecard > Click the Manage tab > Look for Scoring Settings > Type in the Bill Categories you’d like to have available to use throughout the scorecard.

Then under Scorecard > Legislator (tab) > Edit bill > look for Categories. Add your Categories.

Can I add Categories to a bill?

Yes, we’ve automated it. Bills scored favorably have a Support position. Bills scored negatively have a Oppose position. Bills scored as 0 display a Neutral position.

Can I add my Organization’s Position on a bill?

This is a new feature that's recently been added to BillTrack50. So if BillTrack50 has that data separated for your state's votes, we're happy to look at adding that differentiation for you.

Do you Differentiate between Absent and Abstain votes?

Our most common FAQs about scoring formulas and bill scoring using our Legislator Scoring Engine™.

Support: Scoring & Bills

Legislator Scoring Engine™ & Bills

Organizations choose bills that align with their interests and enter a positive, neutral or negative rating for each bill. When a legislator votes for or against a bill, they receive positive, zero or negative points. Then we divide the points possible by the points they received and assign a score for the legislator.

Learn more about How to Build a Legislative Scorecard

How does a legislative scorecard work?

Internally, scorecards provide easy to interpret summaries of what new legislation is proposed and how legislators are voting. 

Publicly, they're used as educative tools for voters. On average, more than 109,000 bills are introduced in state legislatures each year. Most voters don't have the time to find and follow all of the proposed legislation that may affect them, but they know scorecards they typically align with. So it's an easy way for users to quickly find legislation that they may want to research further before contacting their legislator or hitting the ballot box.

Why do advocacy groups use legislative scorecards?

We’re constantly adding on new features. This is not an exhaustive list, but we include:

Vote Index, Vote Index with Bonus, Total Score, or Letter Grade Scoring

Search for your representatives by address

Sort and filtering by party, chamber, name, and score

Congressional Scorecards include State filtering a clickable US Map

State Scorecards include District filtering

Customizable default sorting by score, alphabetically, state or district

Customizable Send Message button on legislator pages

Voting record with links to the most recent bills with activity

Bill sponsorship info on each legislator profile

A link to a legislator’s full, public BillTrack50 profile containing recent bills they voted on, Sponsored Bills, Votes, Committees, Staff, and Biography. See this legislator’s example.

Official legislator headshots, updated annually

Printable legislator pages (black and white)

Any of these bill features can be easily turned on/off to match your preferences. For an example of most of these features turned on, visit Rep. Greg Vitali on ACLU-PA’s scorecard.

Comments section for each bill with link to more information about the bill

Bill Number, Bill Name, Score, Date, Motion, Vote information.

Position: Positive Bills show a Support position. Negative Bills show an Oppose position. Bills without scores show a Neutral position.

What features are included?

2022 planned development iteration includes:

Customizable Send Message button on legislator pages - Launched!

Mobile improvements to legislator profile tables

Accounts management system for easy account updates

What additional features are planned?

One year comes with the standard plugin. When purchasing, you can choose to upgrade to a multi-year subscription, which enables years from 2011 until today. Once upgraded, multiple years will display as tabs at the top of each individual legislator’s page.

1 Year: Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs

Multi-year: ACLU-PA or Rio Grande Foundation

How many years of scorecards can I have?

We can display data from 2011 onward, since that’s when BillTrack50’s data starts.

How many years back can you display data for?

Not yet. That is a feature we have on our development roadmap to be released in the future.

Can I add a different comment on each legislators pages?

No. You must have a paid BillTrack50  Pro, Unlimited, or Enterprise subscription. BillTrack50 is an affordable Bill Tracking service that monitors and scrapes new bill and votes  data.

Our software turns that data into  meaningful information for your followers. So it requires a BillTrack50  API key, which you can request directly from BillTrack50.

Can I use this without a BillTrack50 subscription?

Currently, yes. However, we can create a hosted WordPress microsite that houses the scorecard, if you’d like to use it. Also, we are actively  working on integrating this into other platforms as well. If you would like to request a platform, please contact us.

Is this plugin only for WordPress sites?

While we get regular feedback and input from BillTrack50, we are separate entities.

BillTrack50 is your data source. Their specialty is legislative tracking, so they are your database and backend for all bills and votes data. They include legislation updates 2x per day, alert you daily of legislation changes, and aggregate legislation data from various sources.

We are your web software provider. Our software is a layer on top of BillTrack50. We pull in your bills and votes data from their platform and display it on your website. We provide features, like: Find Your Legislator, search and filtering, and official legislator headshots that they don’t provide.

How are you affiliated with BillTrack50

We are Community Partners. As Partners, we volunteer our time and resources to help others register to vote or update their voter registration.

To learn more about National Voter Registration Day's impact, view their Annual Reports. 

How are you affiliated with National Voter Registration Day?

If a legislator has left office but made a vote in your most recent scorecard, you can log into BillTrack50 and go to your scorecard. Then edit your scorecard’s settings via the ‘Manage’ tab to include out of office legislators in the scorecard. Then they will display along with any votes they made in previous years, if you’ve purchased our multi-year scorecard. Former legislator headshots will not display.

If are just wanting a historical archive of current and former legislators who were in office in years past, that’s not available in our scorecard.

Do you archive and display historical data for all former legislators who are no longer in office?

The vast majority of our customers are non-profits, so our pricing is set accordingly.

Do you offer discounts for nonprofits?

Who do we contact for support or feature requests?

Using our scorecard software, this scorecard does a great job of showing how to utilize Bill Comments with links and Categories.

This scorecard shows lifetime vs session score in a nice graph format.

Congressional Scorecard with Lifetime Scoring

Our partner since 2021, this scorecard includes a state map and legislator biographies.

If you're looking for a PDF-only option, this is an easy-to-scan format.

Best legislative scorecard examples

Yes, our legislator pages output to black and white PDFs for easy printing. To see an example, go to Rep. Cheryl Acton, right-click the page, click Print. Save as a PDF.

Can I print legislator pages?

Please do! If you have feedback, questions or need assistance regarding accessibility on legislativescorecard.us or on any of our Legislative Scorecards, we are available to assist and provide guidance through the communication method that works best for you. Our team is available during regular business hours and your request will be answered as promptly as possible.

support@legislativescorecard.us
(720) 515-0993
Monday-Friday 9am-5pm MST

See our Accessibility Statement for additional information.

I'd like to report an accessibility issue.

The Legislative Scorecard is built and maintained by Revive Design Studios, LLC. We're headquartered in Denver, Colorado with a branch in Virginia. You can visit our parent company website at https://revivestudios.io for more info.

What company runs this service?

Our most common FAQs and supporting general documentation about our scorecard software.

Frequently Asked Questions

Definitely. Check out the ACLU-Pennsylvania scorecard, Progress Arizona, Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs or view our case studies.

Do you have examples of State Scorecards?

In our filtering, we add the ability to filter by District.

How is the State Scorecard different than the Congressional Scorecard option?

Our most common FAQs and supporting documentation about state legislative scorecards.

State Scorecards

Yes. You can the National Parks Action Fund’s Congressional Scorecard and read their case study.

For more examples, check out the American’s For Prosperity National Scorecard, Operative Plasterers’ & Cement Masons’ International Association’s Scorecard and the Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability’s Scorecard.

Do you have examples of Congressional Scorecards?

In our filtering, we add the ability to filter by State.

On our legislator profile pages, we add official legislator biographies like you see on Americans for Prosperity’s legislator profile page.

We also include an optional map of the United States a user can click on, which allows them to filter by State. You can also see this on Americans for Prosperity’s scorecard.

How is the Congressional Scorecard different than the State Scorecard

Our most common FAQs and supporting documentation about congressional legislative scorecards.

Congressional Scorecards

Learn How to Build a Legislative Scorecard

How do I setup the BillTrack50 scorecard on my website using the Legislative Scorecard software?

Sign up for a free Citizen level account on BillTrack50.

In your Citizen account, click the free trial link to start a trial. The trial allows you to create your first Bill Sheet. Then, search for and add bills to a bill sheet. (You will later use this bill sheet to populate your scorecard.) Watch this video to learn how to start a free trial and search for bills.

Email Karen, Founder of BillTrack50, at Karen@LegiNation.com. Let her know you’re interested in demoing her scorecard feature to get it added to your trial account.

Add your Bill Sheet’s bills to your scorecard. For more on that, watch how to set up a scorecard or schedule a short scorecard demo with Karen.

How do I set up a scorecard on BillTrack50?

Your theme must have a full-width desktop template of 960px wide or wider to display this scorecard. If you don’t have one included, you could look at creating a child theme to add one.

We do not recommend using a page template that includes a sidebar, because our plugin comes with a built-in sidebar.

WordPress Theme Requirements

We support the same server system requirements as WordPress: PHP v7.4+, MySQL v5.6+, https/SSL, and the latest version of WordPress.

Server Requirements

Back up your site. Then set the WordPress permalink structure to ‘post-name’. Here’s an example.

The scorecard keeps showing a loading symbol and the scorecard fields in the WordPress admin ARE greyed out.

Go to BillTrack50.com and log into your account. If you’re not able to log in and view your bills, then BillTrack50 is likely down. Please let your contact at BillTrack50 know. Otherwise, if you are able to log into BillTrack50 and view bills, contact our team instead.

The scorecard keeps showing a loading symbol and the scorecard fields in the WordPress admin are NOT greyed out.

Legislator votes determine which legislators your scorecard grades and includes. If you’ve changed your scorecard to a new session, no legislators will show because they haven’t made any votes yet. To solve this, contact BillTrack50 and have them add a dummy bill in your BillTrack50 scorecard with a vote for each legislator. Once you get House and Senate votes, you can remove this dummy bill.

It’s the start of the new session and my legislators aren’t displaying.

It likely means the bill has been voted on in the House, but not the  Senate yet. You can view that bill’s current status in the detail  section of the individual BillTrack50 bill.

It’s the start of the new session and I only have votes for House members.

For new legislators, their headshots will pull in once they have cast a vote that has been pulled into your scorecard. If they do not display, contact us.

Some legislator headshots are missing

All legislator headshots are missing

Log into BillTrack50 and go to your scorecard. Edit your scorecard’s settings via the ‘Manage’ tab to include out of office legislators in the scorecard.

A legislator has left office this year but I still want to show them in my scorecard for the current year

Please contact us. Include your website url, a WordPress administrator login, and the names of the missing legislators.

Some legislators are missing after the above items are resolved.

Our most common FAQs and supporting documentation for your scorecard setup.

Installation & Setup

You can Create an Account and follow the instructions to learn more about scoring possibilities. 

Once you've created your account, one of our co-founders will reach out to you via email within 1-2 business days to answer any questions you may have and start designing your scorecard.

New Customers: Sign Up

Use our Stripe Customer Portal to update your customer name, email address, billing address, phone number and credit card info. Use the email address you signed up for the Legislative Scorecard with to log in.

If you have trouble accessing it or remembering the email used, contact us and we'll help you out.

Support

Customer Accounts

New Customers: Sign Up

Current Customers: Customer Portal

Setup a Congressional or State Legislative Scorecard for your organization.