Democracy Test Kitchen Discusses Creation of a Personalized Guide for Voters with YourUpdateTV

Nationwide media tour conducted by Dr. Stan Humphries, Co-Founder of Democracy Test Kitchen, in conjunction with D S Simon Media, highlighting the goal of making political information more accessible, transparent and useful, especially at the state and local levels

NEW YORK, Oct. 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The ballot box is getting more complicated, and voters are being asked to make more decisions with less clarity. From Congress and governors, to state and local races, it can be difficult to know who does what, where candidates stand and which issues matter to them.

Even though Americans remain interested in local politics, fewer than half say it’s easy to find the information they need to make informed voting decisions.

Enter Democracy Test Kitchen, a free, nonpartisan platform designed to make voting simpler and more transparent. The team, including former Zillow analytics leader Stan Humphries, who helped develop the technology behind the Zestimate, is applying data and AI to a new challenge: helping voters better understand their choices.

Voters answer questions about the issues that matter to them. Democracy Test Kitchen then compares those views with available information on candidates, including voting records, campaign websites and other documented sources. It shows how closely candidates align with a voter’s views, while providing the sources and confidence levels behind the information, giving voters the tools to make their own decisions.

Dr. Stan Humphries, Co-Founder of Democracy Test Kitchen, answered some of the most topical and pressing questions on this topic:

• What problem is Democracy Test Kitchen solving for voters?
  
  

Democracy Test Kitchen is a free, nonpartisan platform that is really designed to make politics more intelligible and a little bit more fun, hopefully, for voters, because generally what we've observed is that politics turns out to be one of the harder things in modern life to actually understand. And we don't think it should be so hard.

So we're on a mission to really make it a little bit more transparent about what you're going to get with each candidate, what they're going to do when they're in office, and then to hold them accountable once they're in office. So that's really our mission.

• How does the service provide recommendations?
  
  

It’s about scouring the landscape for every piece of political content we can find that helps us understand what candidates are likely to do when they’re in office. That includes their voting records, campaign literature, news coverage and social media.

We take those signals from a variety of sources and map them against roughly 100 issues that matter to voters, from data centers and immigration to the wars in Iran and Ukraine, tariffs and more. We then use that information to predict where each candidate on your ballot stands on those issues.

We also grade our predictions based on confidence. An explicit statement from a candidate receives a high-confidence rating, while an isolated social media comment might receive a low-confidence rating. In either case, voters can click through to see the sources behind our conclusions and evaluate the information for themselves.

• What does your Zestimate experience bring to politics?
  
  

A lot of our team has been working on Democracy Test Kitchen over the past year, drawing on our experience at Zillow, where we spent nearly two decades organizing real estate information and making it more accessible to consumers so they could make better decisions about buying and selling homes.

That same approach translates well to politics. Voters face a similar challenge: How do you gather information from a wide range of sources and bring it together in a way that helps people make informed decisions?

Our goal isn’t to make recommendations about who voters should support. Instead, we want to provide insight into what candidates believe and what they’re likely to do in office, while allowing voters to express what matters most to them and see how their views align with those of the candidates.

We’ve enjoyed using data to make complex information more understandable for consumers in real estate, and we’re excited to bring that same experience to the civic space through Democracy Test Kitchen.

• How does Democracy Test Kitchen work?
  
  

Democracy Test Kitchen is a free, nonpartisan resource available at DemocracyKitchen.com, with apps for both iPhone and Android.

You simply enter your location so we can identify the candidates on your ballot. From there, we’ll ask you questions about the issues in each race to help you understand how the candidates differ and how their positions align with your views.

It’s easy to use, and it’s completely free. You don’t have to share any personal information with us, we take privacy very seriously. If you choose to register, you can also receive updates on the races you care about and stay informed between elections.

For more information, visit DEMOCRACYTESTKITCHEN.COM

About YourUpdateTV:
YourUpdateTV is a property of D S Simon Media. The video included and release was part of a media tour that was produced by D S Simon Media on behalf of Democracy Test Kitchen.

Media Contact
Michael O’Donnell
D S Simon Media
212-736-2727
modonnell@dssimon.com

A video accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/927d6108-7b21-404d-860f-ea3690c1f5a6