Introducing Lefty Cheat Sheet
Share the Cities built Lefty Cheat Sheet to better inform Seattle voters of the range of endorsing organizations that exist beyond our two major newspapers. It was built with us and our own communities in mind, and then shared with everyone to use and to customize.
Each election we individually sift through many websites to help make voting decisions and a lot of us are the people our friends turn to when they have questions about who or what to vote for. We built this tool to show the range of progressive endorsements, as well as financial disclosure information, that we ourselves use to make decisions in Seattle elections, all in one place.
This tool also elevates the voices of hundreds of hardworking everyday lefty grassroots organizers across many organizations that are often ignored by well-funded establishment campaigns. We purposely include endorsements from local groups that are doing the work on the ground, that we trust and have collaborated with over the last 20 years. We also link directly to sources. This is more reliable than a Google search or an AI summary. We manually vet every endorsement we add and have user-tested the site with various groups we are connected to.
Who are we?
Share the Cities is a group of lefty community members with a collective 100+ years of experience advocating for issues like housing and economic justice, environmental justice, public health, reproductive justice, police accountability, and peace in Seattle. Some of our past volunteer projects include:
- Affordable Talaris
- Alternative6.org
- Jackson Park for All
- Municipal Broadband
- One Seattle for All
- Wallingford for All
- RideTrans.it Mastodon Instance
- numerous letter campaigns, including most recently 4th and Cherry bus stop accessibility changes this month
We are all-volunteer, and have built and operated Lefty Cheat Sheet on a shoestring budget (<$100 to date). We believe that the organizations we feature, and their endorsements, stand on their own.
This project has volunteers contributing anywhere from 2 to 200 hours. Some did the design. Some the code infrastructure and implementation. Some the socials. Others hand verified every endorsement listing. A volunteer’s 15 year old child helped design our “Lefty Pick” logo with a free Canva account and open source fonts/icons. Still others gave critical feedback. Many others shared to trusted networks to get real user input before going live or adding new features.
Are we connected to Ron Davis or any other campaign or PAC?
No. We are not and have never been affiliated with Davis or the “Voters for Honest Endorsements” PAC. Davis campaign's yard signs annoyed many of us, and the recent text likely drove a lot of traffic to our website but has confused people about why this site exists. Everyone working on this project is committed to no coordination with any campaign or PAC.
We were blown away by the response the Lefty Cheat Sheet got in the primary. We saw people using it to vote, sharing it with their friends and family, and even had it recommended back to us by strangers we talked to at the farmers market! We look forward to continuing to improve the site for coming election cycles and the implementation of ranked choice voting in the 2027 Seattle elections.
- Register to vote in 5 minutes on a mobile phone (you do NOT need a Washington State drivers license to register).
- Vote early.
- Make a voting plan.
- Use a ballot drop box, not a USPS mailbox.
- Track your ballot.
Please direct media, questions, and corrections to us at: contact@electioncheatsheet.org
More Frequently Asked Questions
I Always Use The Stranger’s Voting Guide. Why Should I Switch To Using This Site?
The Stranger was bought out by Noisy Creek (a private, for-profit media company owned by a private group of investors) and has disinvested in its local political reporting. Their endorsement decisions are made by a team of employees (staff writers and editors) selected by the company.
How Is This Different From The Progressive Voters Guide?
Progressive Voters Guide in Washington State is funded by Fuse Votes, an Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee (“Super PAC”) operated by Fuse Washington. Endorsement decisions are ultimately made by its employees and political campaign director and the most important (“controversial”) endorsement decisions are decided by the Fuse Washington Board (financial donors).
Why Aren't Labor Unions Included?
Firstly, they can be! All group inclusions and weightings are adjustable by you, the user, and your custom settings can be further re-shared.
Secondly, labor unions are excluded in our site's initial settings. While we respect and pay close attention to the decisions labor unions make for themselves, those decisions can be risk-averse and may not always align with transformative change for the broader public. While many labor union endorsements are fully aligned with their membership's values, some may instead reflect strategic alliances with the status quo, especially when it comes to voting on long-time powerful incumbent politicians.
How Does The Site Aggregate Endorsements? What is "Majority Pick"?
You control which endorsing organizations are counted, and how much each group is weighted. The total number of endorsements for each candidate are then multiplied by the weight multiplier for each organization group. The site recommends as "Majority Pick" the candidate with the highest weighted endorsement count that cross above 50%. If no candidate clears 50.01%, there is no Majority Pick. Dual endorsements splits weight evenly among the endorsed candidates. Tap “Modify sources” at the top of the page to see or change these settings.
What Races Does This Site Track?
Currently the site only tracks endorsements for elections in jurisdictions in Seattle or that overlap with some part of the City of Seattle. It could be expanded in the future.
Why Aren’t Any Endorsements From Elected Leaders Included?
Endorsements from elected leaders do not necessarily correlate with a candidate being left. Examples: