Porch Politics Terms of Service

Effective August 30, 2026

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and Porch Politics LLC ("Porch Politics," "we," "us," or "our") governing your access to and use of the Porch Politics mobile apps, website, campaign tools, and related support and managed services (collectively, the "Services"). By accessing or using the Services, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

1. Eligibility and authority

You may use the Services only if you can form a binding agreement and are not prohibited from using them under applicable law. If you use the Services for a campaign, committee, organization, employer, or other entity, you represent that you are authorized to bind that entity, and “you” includes that entity. Campaign access may also be governed by an order form, managed-services agreement, data-use agreement, or campaign-specific terms. Those signed terms control if they expressly conflict with these Terms.

2. What Porch Politics provides

Porch Politics supports campaign invitations, volunteer commitments, privacy-bounded contact selection and reconciliation, manual peer-to-peer texting workflows, campaign chat and alerts, conversation feedback, suppression choices, and aggregate reporting. Unless campaign-specific materials expressly say otherwise, Porch Politics is a technology and operations provider, not the campaign committee, a telecommunications carrier, an election official, or a provider of legal advice. Access to campaign administration requires separate authorization; submitting a public interest form does not create a campaign account or service commitment.

3. Accounts and security

You must provide accurate information, control the phone number or account used to sign in, protect your device and credentials, and promptly notify us of suspected unauthorized access. You may not share a reviewer, operator, or organizer credential; bypass mobile attestation or access controls; impersonate another person; or use an invitation you are not authorized to use. You are responsible for activity performed through your account unless caused by Porch Politics' breach of these Terms or applicable law.

4. Campaign and organizer responsibilities

Campaigns and organizers are responsible for the accuracy and legality of campaign identity, authorization, disclosures, invitations, message guidance, questions, content, retention instructions, support contacts, and privacy notices they provide. They must grant access only to authorized personnel, use reports only for the agreed campaign purpose, honor role and suppression boundaries, and comply with campaign-finance, election, privacy, consumer-protection, records, and communications laws. Porch Politics may require evidence of authority or compliance and may refuse or suspend a campaign that does not provide it.

5. Volunteer texting and communications compliance

The volunteer chooses each recipient, controls the message, and decides whether to send it through the device's native SMS composer. Porch Politics does not send that SMS, read the volunteer's SMS inbox, determine whether a recipient has consented, or represent that a carrier delivered the message. Volunteers and campaigns must comply with all applicable calling and texting laws, campaign-disclaimer rules, carrier requirements, consent requirements, quiet-hour restrictions, and do-not-contact or opt-out requests. They must not use the Services to automate, disguise, or continue unwanted messages, and must promptly honor a recipient's request to stop.

6. Contact Processing Addendum

By selecting and uploading a contact, a volunteer asks Porch Politics to process that reviewed contact record for the campaign purposes disclosed in the app and the Privacy Policy. A selected record may contain names, phone numbers, email addresses, postal addresses, and structured name fields. The volunteer represents that they have lawful authority to access and provide the information for this purpose.

The volunteer authorizes device-protected restoration and consent-bound processing in the private voter warehouse used by Porch Politics. That warehouse may preserve contact evidence within the authorized data-use scope, match it to licensed voter records, and produce campaign-scoped relationship, coverage, matching, and official-participation results. The first pass uses the selected name and phone; an address is not required. If several licensed records remain plausible, the warehouse may return a short signed list of candidate names and addresses to the selecting volunteer for review. Fuzzy name, distance, and area-code signals rank review choices but do not confirm identity. A result that says “not recorded” means the named official snapshot contains no participation record; it does not prove that a person did not vote. Porch Politics does not infer or disclose ballot choice.

The app encrypts the selected-contact card before upload. Cloudflare D1 stores a client-encrypted packet that the Worker cannot decrypt. The private voter warehouse returns a signed artifact bound to the packet digest, consent lease, source versions, election, and campaign-specific projection. The Worker's packet and current artifact are removed when the lease is withdrawn, the volunteer leaves, the campaign is completed, or the account is deleted; artifacts also expire automatically.

Porch Butterfly is a separate, campaign-independent feature. A member may create a revocable Standing Circle of 10 to 30 people they would personally be willing to text if they later choose to help. Porch stores campaign-independent opaque reach tokens and limited consent, route, renewal, cadence, and suppression state; contact names and cards remain on the member’s device. Butterfly invitations and mutual account linking are not active. A standing edge is not permission to send, proof of political support, or automatic campaign enrollment.

A campaign activation may use a signed, expiring result from the authorized private voter warehouse to determine that an opaque reach handle falls within that activation’s lawful constituency scope. Porch may use that result to offer one expiring relationship route to a member who separately opts in. Campaigns may receive aggregate route and completion totals but may not use Porch Butterfly to obtain a member’s contact list, a person-level network graph, an opaque reach token, or a reusable voter-to-network mapping.

7. Campaign boundary and conversation feedback

The campaign receives task-completion notifications and aggregate progress. A campaign may define structured conversation questions, such as conversation sentiment or yard-sign interest. A volunteer chooses whether to submit answers, an optional note, and follow-up state. Porch Politics presents that submission to authorized campaign roles as privacy-bounded feedback without attaching the selected contact's or volunteer's identity. The volunteer must not put a person's name, phone number, email address, street address, or other identifying contact details in the free-text campaign note.

Selecting a person does not authorize Porch Politics to give the campaign that person's contact record, signature, POPRF token, outreach ID, or person-level outreach export. A response-specific organizer follow-up is delivered through an internal volunteer thread that is excluded from campaign thread listings and campaign-facing routing metadata.

8. Your content and permitted use

You retain ownership of content you submit. You grant Porch Politics a limited, nonexclusive license to host, copy, transmit, process, and display that content only as needed to provide, secure, and improve the Services and as described in the Privacy Policy. You represent that you have the rights and permissions needed for the content and instructions you provide.

You may not use the Services to violate law or another person's rights; harass, threaten, deceive, or discriminate; submit unlawful, defamatory, infringing, malicious, or misleading content; expose selected-contact information in campaign-facing free text; scrape or reconstruct protected identities; upload malware; probe or disrupt security; exceed rate limits; reverse engineer except where law prohibits that restriction; resell unauthorized access; or use Porch Politics data, privacy tokens, or outputs for an unrelated campaign, commercial marketing, credit, employment, housing, insurance, eligibility, or other incompatible purpose.

9. Privacy, alerts, and electronic notices

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle information. Email invitations and push alerts are optional and may be disabled in campaign or device settings. You consent to receive transactional account, security, and service notices electronically. Marketing or campaign messages require any separate consent required by law. You are responsible for keeping your support and campaign contact information current.

10. App stores and third-party services

The Services rely on third parties, including Cloudflare, Telnyx, Apple, Google, telecommunications carriers, and authorized voter-data systems. Their services may be subject to their own terms and may change or become unavailable. If you obtain the iOS app through Apple's App Store, Apple's Standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement applies to the app license and these Terms govern the related Porch Politics Services. Google Play terms apply to Android distribution. Apple and Google are not responsible for Porch Politics support, claims, or Services except as their own terms expressly provide.

11. Porch Politics intellectual property

The Services, software, design, documentation, trademarks, and other Porch Politics materials are owned by Porch Politics or its licensors and are protected by law. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, revocable, nonexclusive, nontransferable right to use the Services for their intended purpose. No other license is granted. Open-source components remain subject to their applicable licenses.

12. Availability, changes, and termination

We may maintain, modify, limit, suspend, or discontinue all or part of the Services, including to protect security, comply with law, address provider failures, or enforce these Terms. We do not promise uninterrupted availability or that every invitation, alert, message, match, official record, or campaign outcome will be available, complete, or error-free. You may stop using the Services, leave a campaign, or delete a volunteer account at any time. We may suspend or terminate access for a material or repeated breach, unlawful use, security risk, or loss of campaign authorization. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination will survive, including ownership, disclaimers, liability limits, indemnity, and dispute terms.

13. No legal advice or outcome guarantee

Information and tools in the Services are operational aids, not legal, campaign-finance, election, telecommunications, or professional advice. Campaigns and users must obtain their own advice and approvals. Porch Politics does not guarantee message delivery, volunteer participation, voter registration, official turnout status, persuasion, election results, fundraising, legal compliance, or any campaign outcome.

14. Disclaimers

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” PORCH POLITICS DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTY ARISING FROM COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT THIRD-PARTY OR OFFICIAL DATA WILL BE COMPLETE, CURRENT, OR ACCURATE. THESE DISCLAIMERS DO NOT LIMIT RIGHTS OR WARRANTIES THAT CANNOT LAWFULLY BE DISCLAIMED.

15. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, PORCH POLITICS AND ITS MEMBERS, MANAGERS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, AND LICENSORS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, CAMPAIGN OPPORTUNITY, OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO THE SERVICES, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THEIR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO THE SERVICES WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($100) OR THE AMOUNT YOU PAID PORCH POLITICS FOR THE SERVICES DURING THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for intentional or gross fault, physical injury, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limits, so some of this section may not apply to you.

16. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Porch Politics and its members, managers, employees, and contractors from third-party claims, damages, penalties, and reasonable costs arising from your unlawful messages or content, your misuse of selected-contact or campaign data, your violation of another person's rights, or your material breach of these Terms. This obligation does not apply to the extent a claim was caused by Porch Politics' own fault or where indemnification is prohibited by law.

17. Governing law and disputes

Louisiana law governs these Terms, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, except where federal law or non-waivable law applies. Before filing a claim, each party will make a good-faith effort for 30 days to resolve it through the contact information below, unless immediate relief is reasonably necessary. Any judicial proceeding must be brought in a state court located in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, or a federal court with jurisdiction over Tangipahoa Parish, and each party consents to personal jurisdiction and venue there. Nothing in these Terms prevents a person from contacting a regulator or government agency or exercising a right that cannot be waived.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the Services or law changes. We will post the revised Terms with a new effective date and provide additional notice when a change is material or consent is required. Changes apply prospectively. Continued use after the revised Terms take effect constitutes acceptance to the extent permitted by law.

19. General terms

If a provision is unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum lawful extent and the remaining provisions will continue. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a reorganization, financing, merger, sale, or transfer of the Services. These Terms and any applicable signed campaign agreement are the entire agreement about the Services and supersede prior discussions on that subject.

20. Contact

Support is also available at https://porchpolitics.org/support.