For teachers

Short activities for civics, government and statistics classes. The site is free, needs no accounts or sign-ups, has no ads, and doesn't track students.

Before you start

• Students only need a browser. Everything works on phones and school laptops.
• Turn on Hide party labels (top of every page) to have students judge votes on their own merits first. You can share a link that opens with labels hidden: add ?parties=hidden to any address, for example uscongressvsvoters.org/states/?parties=hidden.
• The Glossary explains terms like roll-call vote, cloture and too close to call.

Activity 1: Meet your members (15 minutes)

1. Open All states and choose your state.
2. Find your two senators and your representative. (Not sure of your district? The House's Find Your Representative page looks it up from a ZIP code.)
3. For each member, write down: how many votes they missed this Congress, and how many surveyed votes went the way a clear majority of their constituents wanted.

Discuss: Is attendance a fair way to judge a member? What might explain a missed vote?

Activity 2: Find a vote that went against the majority (20 minutes)

1. Open one of your members' pages and scroll to Votes compared with what constituents said.
2. Find a vote marked Against the majority. Open its official record.
3. Look up what the member said about that vote (a press release, a speech or a news story).

Discuss: Should a representative follow what most constituents want, or their own judgment? This is an old debate: compare the "delegate" and "trustee" views of representation.

Activity 3: Two senators, one state (20 minutes)

1. Open Compare and pick your state's two senators.
2. How often did they vote the same way? Find a vote where they split.

Discuss: Two senators represent exactly the same people. Why might they still vote differently?

Activity 4: Reading an estimate (statistics, 25 minutes)

1. Open Surveyed votes and choose a question.
2. Each state and district has an estimate and a likely range. Find one that's marked too close to call.
3. Read Methods on how the range is worked out.

Discuss: Why are district estimates less certain than state estimates? Why does the site refuse to count a vote when the range crosses 50%?

Activity 5: Related isn't the same (15 minutes)

1. On Surveyed votes, find a vote labeled related.
2. Compare the survey question with what the bill actually did.

Discuss: Why doesn't the site count related votes? What could go wrong if it did?

Good to know

• The site compares; it doesn't grade. "Voted against the majority" isn't the same as "did something wrong", and the FAQ says so for students too.
• Every figure links to its source, and every correction is in the corrections log.
• Feel free to copy, print and adapt this page. Ideas for activities, or something that didn't work in class? Tell us.