How ratings work
Stars are for a job, not for a brand. A site can be five stars at contact and three at lookup. There is no overall winner of politics on the internet.
Ratings are whole stars, one through five. They are editorial judgments about fitness to a job in a defined set of tools — not lab tests, not user reviews, not a 9.8 trophy.
What the numbers mean
5 — Does this job as well as anything in the set
Ballotpedia for the encyclopedia. ActBlue for Democratic fundraising. 5 Calls for a scripted call. Two sites can both be 5s when they win different slices of the same job (ActBlue and WinRed).
4 — Strong, with a specialist still ahead or beside it
Vote Smart on research. Anedot as a processor. Power Players when you want to donate without a solicitation list.
3 — Usable. Specialists win.
Power Players as an encyclopedia. Change.org still wins petition volume; Power Players ranks on putting the ask next to the official.
2 — Adjacent, not the tool
A site that touches the job without doing it.
1 — Wrong tool for this job
OpenSecrets is not a place to donate. Power Players is not a disclosure desk.
What is being compared
Each matrix is a closed set: the main tools for that job, usually four or five. The first rows are “Best for” (the site’s strength) and “Best if” (when to use it). A highlighted cell is the row winner, or a split when two sites win different slices. Stars sit at the bottom of the column so they are a summary of the rows, not a substitute for them.
Facts in the cells are the kind that decide a choice: who you can give to, whether a script exists, fees, official source, live odds. Adjectives are for the verdict, not the grid.
What this is not
Not a lab. Not an 8.9. Not news. If a page would need weekly writing, it does not belong here. Last-updated dates are bumped when the set or the facts change.
Last updated September 23, 2026
Published by the team behind Power Players.