---
name: maintain-voter-profile
description: Interview the user to build or update a local VOTER.md file capturing values, priorities, and tradeoffs for ballot analysis — use when user wants to create, update, or review their voter profile, first-time setup, or before an election
license: MIT
---

# maintain-voter-profile

Help the user build or update their local `VOTER.md` — a plain-language record of their values,
priorities, and tradeoffs that other skills use to analyze United States ballots on their behalf.

## When to use this skill

- First time: conduct the full interview below and create `VOTER.md`
- Returning user, or any time an election is close: run the **pre-election refresh** instead —
  it is a different, much shorter procedure, not an abbreviated version of the full interview

---

## Pre-election refresh

When `VOTER.md` already exists, **do not re-run the full interview.** This profile gates every
other skill in this collection, and a returning voter three weeks out from an election will
abandon a forty-minute re-interview rather than finish it — which leaves them with no usable
profile at the exact moment they need one. A ten-minute refresh that actually gets completed
beats a thorough one that doesn't.

Read the existing `VOTER.md` in full first, then ask only these, reading the relevant existing
content back to them as you go:

1. **Has anything changed in your life that changes your ballot?** A move, a job change, a new
   school-age kid, a health event, a different commute. Circumstance shifts which issues bind
   far more often than opinions do, and voters don't volunteer it.
2. **Is this still your ranking?** Read their current top three back and ask whether that's
   still the order.
3. **Anything on this ballot you already have a strong view on?** Free-form. Catches the
   measures and races they've been arguing about, which is where their real priorities show.
4. **Any new dealbreakers?** Read the existing list back first.
5. **Anything here you now disagree with?** Read back the two or three most opinionated lines
   from Positions.

Update only what changed, bump **Last updated**, confirm the diff, and stop.

If an answer opens a genuinely new issue area the profile doesn't cover, ask the depth
follow-ups for **that topic only**. Don't let the refresh reopen the whole interview.

Offer — don't impose — the full interview when the profile is more than one election cycle old,
or when the completion test below now fails on a topic that matters for this ballot. Say what's
missing and how long it would take, and let the voter choose.

---

## Interview guidance

Be conversational, not bureaucratic. Ask one topic at a time. For each major topic, ask at least
one clarifying follow-up and do not move on until the answer contains a policy preference, a
tradeoff they would accept or reject, and either a threshold, example, or dealbreaker.

Vague answers like "I care about the environment" are not useful. Specific answers like "I'd
accept higher energy costs to accelerate the transition off fossil fuels, but I'm skeptical of
carbon offsets" are.

Use prompts like these to push for depth without challenging the user's values:
- "That gives me the direction — what would make you vote the other way?"
- "What's the acceptable tradeoff here?"
- "Would you still support this if it raised taxes?"
- "Would you still oppose it if an audit showed strong results?"
- "Is this a preference or a dealbreaker?"
- "Give me one concrete example of a policy you'd support and one you'd reject."

Start with jurisdiction and community context, then adapt the interview instead of forcing every
voter through the same issue list. Before writing VOTER.md, confirm the profile covers the
universal core and the topics most likely to distinguish choices on that voter's ballot.

**Start here**
- State, ZIP code, city or town, and county (required for ballot lookup)
- What kinds of local governments and districts represent them, if they know (for example
  county, township, municipality, school district, or special district)
- Whether their community is urban, suburban, or a mix; its major local industries; and how long
  they have lived there
- Which local issues already affect them or seem likely to appear on their ballot

**Universal core** (cover for every voter)
- Their top priorities, why those priorities matter, and how they rank against one another
- Cost of living beyond housing — groceries, healthcare, utilities, insurance, childcare — and
  what tradeoffs (subsidies, regulation, spending) they'd accept to ease it
- Taxes, spending, public-service quality, and what evidence or oversight justifies public funding
- Rights, public safety, and the limits they place on government authority
- Governance, ethics, competence, checks and balances, and candidate conduct
- Statewide executive and administrative offices — attorney general, secretary of state,
  treasurer, auditor, superintendent of public instruction, insurance commissioner. These carry
  real discretion, they appear on general-election ballots, and they are the offices voters most
  often reach with no view at all. Ask what they want *from the office*, not which party should
  hold it: should the AG's priority be consumer and antitrust enforcement or criminal
  prosecution? Should the secretary of state act as an advocate for ballot access, an auditor of
  election process, or both? A voter with no answer here will get Low-confidence recommendations
  for a whole tier of their ballot.
- Dealbreakers and meaningful tradeoffs they would accept

**Choose locally relevant topics**
Ask about a topic only when it is important to the user, relevant to the jurisdiction, or likely to
distinguish ballot choices. Possible topics include:

- Housing, growth, land use, property rights, affordability, and homelessness
- Roads, transit, broadband, utilities, and other infrastructure
- Schools, libraries, higher education, curricula, and education funding
- Policing, prosecution, courts, incarceration, treatment, emergency services, and gun policy
- Healthcare, reproductive policy, disability services, and public health
- Energy costs, environmental quality, and conservation
- Jobs, wages, labor, trade, and the community's major industries
- Immigration and border issues where relevant to the jurisdiction
- Election administration, voting access, redistricting, and judicial or law-enforcement elections
- Taxes, bonds, spending, pensions, and any ballot measures already under discussion

Do not assume that density, transit, teacher unions, homelessness enforcement, or any other
regionally prominent issue matters everywhere — adapt to what this voter's county or city
actually puts on the ballot.

**Higher-level issues**
Cover state and federal issues in proportion to their presence on the ballot and importance to
the voter. Keep them brief when local choices dominate.

**Governance and institutional values**

Ask about divided versus unified control **separately at each level of government.** A voter can
coherently want one party holding unified power in their state while preferring divided control
in Washington, or the exact reverse — and one abstract question about "concentrated power" will
never surface that. A general-election ballot asks them all of these questions at once, so the
profile needs an answer for each level, not one blended answer.

- **Federal:** does it matter to them whether Congress is held by the president's party? Would
  they vote for a candidate they like less in order to change that, or to preserve it?
- **State:** how do they feel about one party holding the governorship and both legislative
  chambers? Does their state currently have that, and does it change how they'd vote?
- **Local and district:** on small boards — school board, council, special districts — a couple
  of seats decide a working majority. Do they think about the composition of the body, or only
  about individual candidates?
- **Checks and balances:** how much do they value institutional constraints versus speed and
  cohesion, and where do they draw the line?
- Push for specificity: "I prefer balance" is not useful. A concrete threshold — opposing a
  veto-proof majority, wanting an independent redistricting commission, requiring independent
  oversight on a bond — is.

This section does disproportionate work downstream. In a primary, where candidates share a
platform, it is frequently the only part of the profile that separates them at all.

**Values and tradeoffs**
- When economic growth conflicts with environmental protection, where do they land?
- When individual rights conflict with public safety or public health, where do they land?
- Are there issues where they vote differently from their usual lean?
- Anything they consider a dealbreaker — positions a candidate must or must never hold?

### Depth requirements

Do not treat a first answer as complete unless it contains enough detail to distinguish between
candidates or ballot measures. If an answer is directionally clear but operationally vague, ask
one clarifying question before moving on. Examples of incomplete answers:

- "I support responsible growth" — ask what growth means locally, which infrastructure or resources
  constrain it, what must happen first, and what costs they would accept.
- "I support public safety" — ask which local risks concern them, what prevention and enforcement
  tools they support, how they weigh civil liberties, and what outcomes would change their view.
- "I care about fiscal accountability" — ask what evidence would justify a tax, whether bonds are
  acceptable, and what audit or reporting standard they require.

### Completion test

Before writing VOTER.md, silently check:

1. Could this profile distinguish between two candidates from the same party?
2. Could it evaluate a funding proposal with concrete costs, benefits, oversight, and alternatives?
3. Could it decide a difficult tradeoff involving one of this voter's highest-priority local issues?
4. Does it cover the institutions, offices, industries, resources, and community conditions that
   materially shape this voter's ballot?
5. Did the interview omit any locally important topic because of an urban, suburban, rural,
   regional, national, or partisan assumption?
6. Are priorities ranked clearly enough to resolve conflicts between positions?
7. Are there contradictions that need resolution?
8. Does it say something about divided versus unified control at each level this voter's ballot
   actually decides — federal, state, and local — rather than one blended answer?

If the answer to any is "no", ask targeted follow-ups before writing.

---

## VOTER.md structure

Write the profile in this format. Preserve the user's own words where possible.

```markdown
# Voter Profile

- **Location:** [City or town, county, state, ZIP code]
- **Last updated:** [YYYY-MM-DD]

## Priorities

Ranked from most to least important to this voter:

1. [Issue] — [one sentence on their position and why]
2. [Issue] — ...
...

## Positions

### [Issue area]
[2–4 sentences. Be specific about their position, the tradeoffs they accept, and any nuance.
Note confidence level if they expressed uncertainty.]

### [Issue area]
...

### Governance and institutional values
[Always include this section, under this heading, so it's easy to find — the other skills lean
on it heavily, and it carries most of the weight when candidates' stated positions look alike
(see research-primary-ballot, where it is often the only thing separating a same-party field).
Cover divided
vs. unified control at federal, state, and local level separately, checks and balances, and
oversight, with the concrete thresholds the voter gave.]

### Statewide administrative offices
[What they want from the AG, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, superintendent, and
insurance commissioner — in terms of what the office should do, not which party should hold it.
Omit this section only if none of these appear on their ballot.]

## Dealbreakers

**Will not support:**
- [specific position or behavior a candidate must not hold]

**Must support:**
- [specific position or commitment a candidate must have, if any]

## Notes

[Anything that doesn't fit above — voting history patterns, strong feelings about process or
institutions, local context that matters for interpreting the rest of the profile.]
```

---

## Output requirements

- Write to `VOTER.md` in the current directory
- On updates, preserve sections the user didn't touch — don't rewrite what hasn't changed
- On a pre-election refresh, keep it short: five questions, update what changed, stop. Don't
  drift back into the full interview because an answer was interesting
- Never upload or transmit the file; keep it local
- After writing, confirm what changed and ask if anything looks wrong