Finding reliable information about your elections and candidates shouldn't be this hard.

One place to explore who's running, who represents you, and what's on your ballot. We organize political information to build trust between citizens and representatives, starting in Virginia.

How this started

Tosh Penton, founder of Local Candidates
Tosh Penton, Founder

In 2022, I was looking for clear, reliable information about local candidates — but despite living in the information age, participating in democracy still feels like a burden.

That experience made something obvious: the infrastructure for civic information in this country is broken. National media monetizes outrage while local elections go uncovered, leaving everyday people who want to participate with little more than noise.

So I started building something better — applying what I knew from digital design and marketing to make civic information easier to find and understand. I started with Virginia. The model works anywhere.

What makes this different

Transparency is accountability.

When citizens can see what their representatives do and what candidates stand for, politics gets better. Better information leads to better representation.

We organize information, not opinions.

Nonpartisan by design. We present what candidates say and do. You decide what matters.

The information is public. Getting it to you is the hard part.

Civic information competes with everything else for your attention. We make it easy to find, easy to understand, and worth your time.

See for yourself

Explore what we've built for Virginia.