Understanding Voting Records
What roll calls are, what 'not voting' means, and how to read them.
When the House or Senate takes an official vote, it's called a "roll call" — every member's name is called and their vote is recorded. These votes are public record, and they're one of the most powerful tools for holding your representatives accountable.
Types of votes: A "Yea" or "Yes" vote means the member supports the measure. "Nay" or "No" means they oppose it. "Present" means they showed up but chose not to vote yes or no (rare, usually for conflict-of-interest reasons). "Not Voting" means they weren't there — either absent, traveling, ill, or deliberately avoiding a controversial vote.
Party-line votes are votes where almost all Republicans vote one way and almost all Democrats vote the other. These are common on hot-button issues and show the partisan divide. Bipartisan votes — where significant numbers from both parties vote the same way — are rarer and often indicate broader consensus.
What to watch for: Look at how your representative votes compared to their party. Do they always vote with party leadership, or do they sometimes break ranks? On issues that matter to you, did they vote the way they said they would during their campaign? Their voting record is the most concrete measure of whether they're doing what they promised.
The DW-NOMINATE score you see on member profiles is a mathematical measure of ideology based on all of a member's votes. A score closer to -1 means very liberal; closer to +1 means very conservative. A score near 0 means the member votes across party lines frequently. It's calculated by political scientists and is one of the most reliable ways to measure where someone actually stands — not where they say they stand.
When you see "97.3% with party" on a member's profile, that means they voted with their party's majority position on 97.3% of all votes — leaving very little room for independent judgment.