Useful counting without visitor profiles

The Vote Files keeps daily totals for broad page categories and a short list of product actions: searches submitted, area lookups, files added to or removed from a watchlist, browser watchlists copied into an account, interest in creating an account or enabling alerts, links to official sources opened, briefing records opened, Morning Record links or graphics shared, topic-history filters used, daily check-ins enabled, and interest in supporting the project.

Each total can be separated by phone, tablet, or desktop and by whether the visit began directly, from another Vote Files page, or from another site. These are combined totals. They do not identify a person.

Vote Files counts page views and visitors for real people, not for automated programs. A page view is counted only when a page loads in a real browser and stays on screen for about a second and a half. A short, broad label for where the visit came from (a search engine, an AI assistant, a social site, another Vote Files page, some other site, or no referrer) is counted with it. The address of the page you came from is never sent or kept.

To estimate how many different people visited without cookies and without keeping your address, the server makes a scrambled one-way code from your internet address and browser details, mixed with a random secret that exists for one day only. The same is done again with a separate random secret that exists for one month only. The code is used only to tell whether two visits came from the same browser on the same day or in the same month. Your internet address and browser details are used only for that moment and are never stored. When the day ends, its totals are written down and that day's secret and every code made with it are deleted. The monthly secret and its codes are deleted the same way when the month ends. After that, no code can be matched to any visit or any person, even by Vote Files.

Visits from search-engine crawlers, scrapers, scripted browsers, monitoring tools, data-center networks and other automated traffic are left out, as are visits from the browsers of the people who run this site. One visitor code that loads an implausible number of pages in a day is treated as automated and removed from the totals. Counts of what was left out are kept by reason, with no personal detail.

No cookie is used for counting. The only counting-related cookie is a marker named vf_internal that the site's own staff browsers carry so their visits are not counted; it contains no identifier and is never set on readers.

Our usage counts do not store a name, email address, internet (IP) address, browser or device details, precise location, raw search phrase, ZIP code, public-record number, full page address, the address of the page you came from, cookie, session number, advertising number, or browser fingerprint. The scrambled visitor codes described above exist only until the end of the day or month they were made for.

The site does not build a visitor profile from these counts. It does not use an outside analytics or advertising company, and it does not sell these counts or use them to target advertising.

An anonymous watchlist, a saved ZIP-based area, the date of your last briefing, and whether you enabled the Morning Record check-in can be stored in your browser so those features work without an account. Browsers used by the site's own staff also hold a small marker named vf_internal that keeps them out of visitor counts. These stay on that device unless a feature needs to ask the server for the current public record.

When you request a ZIP-based area, the ZIP code is sent to the server for that lookup. It is not included in our usage counts. Removing the saved area or clearing site storage removes the browser copy.

The body-camera footage page shows a still picture from YouTube for each clip. When you press play, the video loads in YouTube's own player from youtube-nocookie.com, and YouTube's and Google's privacy policies apply to that player. Vote Files receives nothing from YouTube about who watched.

The recorded-vote pilot sends five details to Vote Files: member ID, Congress, chamber, roll-call number, and the vote being claimed. It does not accept article text, a quotation, a headline, or a link, and it does not open another website.

Those five details are used only to show you the answer. They are not saved in the Vote Files database, a cookie, your browser’s storage, or our usage counts. Results do not get a public number or web address, and the pilot has no way to share a result. Ordinary website hosting and security records are covered under “Retention and hosting logs” below.

A live record card on another site accepts only an approved Vote Files record code. It starts no account session, reads or sets no account cookie, and loads no analytics or advertising code.

The code we give publishers tells the browser not to say which page it came from, to load the card without the visitor’s sign-in details where the browser supports that, and to keep the card sealed off from the rest of the page, with no forms or scripts. A publisher that does not use that code controls its own page’s behavior. A card request can still appear in ordinary hosting and security records, covered under “Retention and hosting logs” below. Loading the card itself creates no record in the Vote Files database about the publisher or the visitor; the publisher summary below is made later from hosting records and keeps only website names and daily counts.

Official video players load from YouTube only after you click "Load player"; until then nothing is requested from YouTube, and Vote Files never stores or copies the video.

The debates page shows each debate in YouTube’s player. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. When you do, the video comes from YouTube’s privacy-enhanced address (youtube-nocookie.com), and YouTube, which is owned by Google, receives your visit and handles it under its own privacy terms. Vote Files does not receive anything back from YouTube about you.

An account stores your email address, a protected version of your passphrase that cannot be turned back into the original, the public files you follow, an optional saved area, your briefing preferences, and records of where you are signed in. A browser-only watchlist is copied into an account only after you approve the transfer.

Confirmation and recovery links are random, work only once, and expire. The cookies that keep you signed in are protected from scripts on the page and are never stored in our usage counts. Account settings let you sign out every device, download your private account data, or delete the account and its saved files.

Email briefings are sent through Postmark only on the schedule you choose and only when a dated public record behind a followed file changes. Postmark receives the email address and message needed to deliver that briefing, stop sending to bad addresses, and find delivery problems, under its own privacy terms. Every message links to the exact record and includes a direct way to turn off email alerts.

For account security, Vote Files saves a scrambled one-way code (a “one-way hash”) made from the internet address of each sign-in request, alongside the record of that sign-in. The code is used to limit abuse and to investigate access to accounts; it is not part of our usage counts and is not used to identify or profile readers.

Public PayPal checkout is currently closed. The public support page does not send payment or account information to PayPal and presents no active payment button. If checkout opens, PayPal will be the only payment processor.

Protected payment records can exist for authorized private tests of our payment system. Vote Files never receives or stores a card number, bank account number, or PayPal password. A test payment or dispute record may be kept to reconcile accounts and to meet fraud-prevention, tax, and legal obligations.

Use the payment category on the request desk for a test payment, refund, cancellation, duplicate-charge, or receipt question. Do not enter card, bank, or PayPal credentials in that form.

The request desk stores the category, short summary, message, affected Vote Files page, supporting source link, and any name or reply email you choose to provide. It gives you a random reference code and makes the request available only to our team after they sign in.

A short-lived browser cookie, hidden from scripts on the page, stops other websites from sending requests to the form and ties your confirmation to the browser that sent the request. To limit abuse by automated programs, the request desk briefly counts submissions using separate scrambled one-way codes (keyed, one-way hashes) made from the browser cookie, the internet address, and the general network the request came from. The raw address and network range are not stored with requests, the codes are not used for our usage counts or for profiling, and expired counts are deleted. The request records do not store browser or device details. Ordinary website hosting and security records are covered under “Retention and hosting logs” below.

Submitted material is used to investigate, respond to, document, and resolve the request. It is not published automatically and is never treated as proof until we have checked it against an official source. Resolved requests may be retained when needed to document corrections, publisher instructions, payment disputes, privacy responses, abuse, or legal obligations.

Do not submit passwords, payment-card or bank details, government ID numbers, medical information, or sealed or victim-identifying material.

The licensing and sponsorship form stores the inquiry type, organization, contact name, work email, optional role, website, the level and uses you are interested in, and your message. The supporter list stores your email address and, if you choose, a name and the support level you are considering. Each gets a random reference code and can be seen only by our team after they sign in.

This information is used only to answer the inquiry, prepare an agreement, or send a single notice when public reader support opens. It is not sold or shared, is not part of our usage counts, and never affects coverage. Joining the list is not a payment or a pledge. Ask for deletion through the privacy category on the request desk.

These forms do not set a cookie. They accept a submission only from a Vote Files page and limit abuse by automated programs with the same scrambled one-way codes for the internet address and general network described for the request desk; the raw address is not stored with the inquiry, and no browser or device details are stored.

To find newsrooms and organizations that already use Vote Files cards, our public data, or a "Powered by VoteFiles" link, once a day we may summarize our web server’s records into the name of the website that sent the visit or that identified itself, the date, the kind of request, and a count. It keeps no visitor address, browser or device details, cookie, or page address from the other website, and the summaries are deleted after 400 days.

Combined daily usage counts, daily page-view and visitor totals, and monthly visitor totals are kept for up to 400 days and then deleted automatically. The daily and monthly secrets and visitor codes behind the visitor estimate are deleted when their day or month ends.

Expired confirmation, recovery, and unsubscribe links and expired sign-ins are deleted after a seven-day grace period. Records of sign-in activity and of email delivery that is finished are kept for up to 365 days. A delivery whose outcome is unclear is kept until it is resolved.

Deleting an account removes its email, passphrase, sign-ins, links, followed files, saved area, sign-in history, and email delivery history. A one-way suppression hash (a scrambled code that cannot be turned back into the address) may remain when an address permanently bounced, complained, or was manually turned off, so Vote Files does not send to that address again.

Like most websites, our hosting and security systems may keep ordinary records of visits and errors when a request reaches the server. Those records are separate from our usage counts and may contain the technical details needed to run and protect the site.

Once a day, Vote Files summarizes the previous day of our web server’s records into combined daily totals: page addresses without personal details, the name of the website that sent a visit (never its full address), a broad type of visitor such as a person’s browser or a search engine’s program, whether the request succeeded, and requests for live cards, data, and news-reader feeds. Campaign tags in links, such as ?ref=bsky, are counted in aggregate. The summary never stores an internet (IP) address, browser or device details, cookie, or visitor number, and the totals are kept for up to 400 days. Search phrases are not included.

Questions about this page can be sent through the privacy category on the request desk. If the measurement design changes, this page and its update date will change with it.