Built by one person. For everyone.
Civic Audit exists to solve a fundamental problem: residents deserve to understand the decisions affecting their communities, but legislative information is fragmented across multiple sources and difficult to navigate.
We aggregate real-time bill tracking, official information, and civic data into a single, searchable platform. By supporting this initiative, you're funding infrastructure, database maintenance, and development of features like alerts, expanded API access, and deeper legislation coverage.
The data powering this platform, from bill tracking to official voting records; comes from services like LegiScan, and CivicPlus. Each has real usage limits and subscription requirements that scale directly with what the platform can show you. This is built and maintained by one person, and your contribution keeps that work moving.
Your contribution directly funds the mission of transparent local government.
Support Tiers
Each tier unlocks specific capabilities within infrastructure or data access that change what this site can do.
Keep the Lights On
- check Core hosting & database infrastructure
- check Basic LegiScan pulls — current session bills & status updates
- check Live official directory — legislators, contacts, district info
- check Public search, bill tracking, and voting records
Build Alerts
- check Everything in Keep the Lights On +
- check Increased LegiScan pull budget — bill text, amendments, sponsors
- check User accounts & saved bill searches
- check Email alerts when tracked bills change status
- check Complete vote history by legislator
- schedule Advanced search & filters — in development
- schedule Automated elected official & candidate profiles — in development
Deeper Legislation Data
- check Everything above +
- check Maximum LegiScan pull tier — prior sessions, rollcall detail, fiscal notes
- check Committee hearing schedules & committee membership
- check Cross-session bill comparison
- check Priority support from the developer
- schedule Developer API access — in development
- schedule Fiscal & committee report imports — in development
Local Gov Data
- check Everything above +
- check CivicPlus API access — council meeting agendas & minutes from participating Maryland municipalities
- check SeeClickFix 311 data integration (where available)
- check Agenda item search & archive
- schedule Fiscal & committee report analysis — in development
- schedule Custom PDF report summaries — in development
- schedule Full local + state unified data coverage — in development
CivicPlus has no public free tier — API access is restricted to paying customers of their municipal software suite. This tier directly funds that subscription cost.
Or contribute any amount
No subscription required. A one-time contribution goes directly toward infrastructure costs, data access fees, or just keeping the lights on for another month. Everything helps.
Questions
Why should I support this?
Legislative data in Maryland is spread across the MGA site, individual county portals, and third-party services with inconsistent formatting and no unified search. This platform aggregates it into one place. That takes real infrastructure and time to maintain. Your support directly funds both.
What's the deal with LegiScan limits?
LegiScan's API allows a capped number of data pulls per month based on your subscription tier. Every bill text retrieval, amendment fetch, and rollcall lookup costs against that limit. Higher tiers on this platform correspond to maintaining a higher LegiScan plan, which directly determines how much data we can show you.
Why is CivicPlus data so expensive to access?
CivicPlus powers meeting management, agendas, and 311 services for hundreds of Maryland municipalities, but their API is only available to paying customers of their software suite. There is no independent developer tier. Access requires being an active subscriber, meaning this platform must fund a commercial subscription to pull that data.
Is my contribution tax-deductible?
Civic Audit is not currently registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so contributions are not tax-deductible. I'm exploring nonprofit or fiscal sponsorship options as the platform grows.
Can I cancel my membership?
Yes. You can cancel recurring subscriptions at any time through your Stripe account or by emailing support@civicaudit-md.org.
How is my payment handled?
All payment processing is handled by Stripe. No card details are ever stored on this server. See our Privacy Policy for full details.
Who built this?
One person. A developer based in Maryland (currently job-seeking :). This project exists because the civic data problem is real and frustrating. If you're interested in talking about either the platform or employment, reach out at support@civicaudit-md.org.