Fill it all out, or don’t run.
We deserve to know.
Because they are asking for power over all of us. A citizen fills out a Top 10 for themselves and shares what they choose. A candidate is asking to make the decisions for everyone in a district, a state or the country, on every subject that reaches their desk. The bar is set by that job.
So the standard is simple and it does not bend: every answer, answered by the candidate, with proof that the candidate did it.
Why every answer?
Every answer, because the job has no subjects to skip. A legislature reviews the budget for the whole government and votes on whatever reaches the floor.usa.govusa.gov A representative who will not tell you where they stand on immigration, or how they would split money between health and defense, is telling you those choices will be made later, out of view.
Half a Top 10 is a non-answer. Any candidate can find five comfortable subjects. The other five are the ones voters most need to see. The full rule is on Every subject, every answer.
Why the candidate, and never a staffer?
Because a staffer is not on the ballot. Campaigns are good at writing what a candidate should say. The Top 10 asks for something different: what the candidate actually thinks, ranked, budgeted and graded, in their own judgment.
No staffer may fill out a candidate’s Top 10. Staff can book the hour, set up the device and close the door. Every slider, every dollar and every grade is the candidate’s own. A record answered by staff is not a record of the candidate, and it is not accepted.
Why no position papers?
Because the Top 10 is the whole answer. Position papers are written to be agreeable, they cover the subjects a campaign picked, and they are written by staff. The Top 10 is the same ten subjects for every candidate, the same questions, the same short sides, and one optional note per subject in the candidate’s own words. That is all a candidate’s record holds, and that is what makes two records comparable side by side.
Why so short?
Because short is harder. Every side of every question is 12 words or fewer. There is no room to hide in a paragraph, and no room for a phrase that sounds like a yes to everyone. A candidate has to pick a place on the line and stand there.
Why the video?
Because a promise on camera is harder to break than a checkbox. Every candidate opens their record with The Oath: thirty seconds, one take, outside the seat of the office they want, saying in their own voice that they answered every question themselves. Then they fill out the Top 10 in a recorded session, and the recording is the proof.
Isn’t this unfair to candidates?
It is the same for every candidate. Same subjects, same questions, same words, same order, same proof, for every party and every office. Nothing here scores, ranks or endorses anyone. The only thing it asks is that a person asking for public power shows the public where they stand. They have to share it all. We don’t. We aren’t running for public office.
Where does this apply?
The United States, for now: candidates for federal, state and local office. Federal candidates register with the Federal Election Commission once they raise or spend more than $5,000,fec.gov and that public filing is how a candidate is matched to the office they are running for.
What My Vote Forward can and cannot do here
Can:
- Hold every candidate to the same standard, in public, in the same words.
- Produce a candidate’s full record only when every answer is complete.
- Mark a record that does not meet the standard as not answered yet.
Does not:
- Endorse, rank or score candidates.
- Accept answers from staff, position papers or platform pages in place of the record.
- Ask anything of citizens beyond what they choose to share.
Unresolved questions
- Questions added mid race. When a new question is added during an election season, how long should a candidate have to answer it before the record reads as not answered yet?
Sources
Opened and checked on October 30, 2026.
