0 signatures. No proof any of them live in the district.
Staffers discount volume when authorship, constituency, and specificity are opaque.
Only 0% of Congress staff say form emails influence undecided votes. Half believe those messages are sent without the constituent's knowledge. 0% say individualized emails DO influence — which is the filter staffers apply.
CMF, Citizen-Centric Advocacy (2017); CMF 2004/2015 longitudinal staff panel
What the staffer actually sees
Shared-office mailbox, 0-minute window, one morning in March.
- 9:04 M. Alvarez Oppose HR 5421 — Clean Water Funding Cut
- 9:04 J. Okafor Oppose HR 5421 — Clean Water Funding Cut
- 9:05 S. Park Oppose HR 5421 — Clean Water Funding Cut
- 9:05 D. Thompson Oppose HR 5421 — Clean Water Funding Cut
- 9:06 L. Nguyen Oppose HR 5421 — Clean Water Funding Cut
- 9:06 A. Patel Oppose HR 5421 — Clean Water Funding Cut
- 9:07 R. Chen Oppose HR 5421 — Clean Water Funding Cut
- 9:07 B. Ito Oppose HR 5421 — Clean Water Funding Cut
- — 304 more, identical subject line —
Auto-grouped by the CRM as one campaign. Sampled, totaled, filed. No identity check. No district proof. Half of staff report these campaigns are sent without the constituent's knowledge.
CMF 2004/2015 longitudinal staff panel
Walker & Le, Socius 2023 · astroturf campaigns measurably harm trust in legitimate advocacy orgs
What Commons delivers instead
A petition counts names. A verification packet documents constituents — each individually authored, identity-proven, district-matched, screened for duplicates.
Example packet · CA-11 · Feb 2026
Identity verification
Authorship
Geographic spread
Arrival
Cryptographic audit trail · independently verifiable
- identity registry
user_root— commitment to every verified person- district registry
cell_map_root— commitment to H3-cell → district assignments- action anchor
engagement_root— commitment to per-person action history- one-time receipts
- 0 — one per verified action, prevents double-spend (
nullifier)
Every row in this packet carries a zero-knowledge proof. A decision-maker can verify the proofs without learning who signed. Inspect the full protocol →
- Identity
- answers the staffer's first filter:
- “Is this person real?”
- CMF 2004/2015 · 78% of staff say it is “helpful” or “very helpful” when advocacy campaigns reveal their identity
- Geography
- answers:
- “Are they in my district?”
- CMF 2017 · 91% of staff weight district-specific impact information
- Authorship
- answers:
- “Did they actually write this?”
- CMF 2004/2015 · 53% of staff say form campaigns are sent without the constituent's knowledge
- Timing
- answers:
- “Is this organic or manufactured?”
- Walker & Le, Socius 2023 · staffers can distinguish organic constituent engagement from coordinated astroturf by arrival patterns
- Screening
- answers:
- “Is this astroturf?”
- Walker & Le, Socius 2023 · unverified submissions measurably harm trust in legitimate orgs
What the packet actually proves.
Every verified row is three independent cryptographic claims. What the sender keeps private stays private. What the decision-maker can verify is recorded publicly.
I'm a real person.
The sender proved a verified identity — without revealing which identity.
Private — stays with you
- ID document
- real name
- user secret
Public — anyone can verify
- identity commitment in the registry
I live in this district.
The sender proved residency — without revealing an exact address.
Private — stays with you
- street address
- exact H3 cell
Public — anyone can verify
- district assignment proof
This is my one action on this campaign.
The sender's past actions stay unlinked — but the same person can't sign twice.
Private — stays with you
- action history
- engagement tier inputs
Public — anyone can verify
- one-time action receipt
One platform, not one more tool.
Verification is the foundation, not an add-on. Every tool an advocacy org runs today — built in, built around verified constituent voice.
One packet model across fragmented intake.
Commons delivers verified packets across US Congress, state legislatures, federal agencies, and local boards.
- U.S. Congress
- State legislatures
- Federal agency dockets
- Governor's offices
- County boards
- City councils
- School boards
- Water districts
- Transit authorities
International adapters shipping 2026: UK Parliament, EU Parliament, Bundestag e-petitions.
U.S. Census Bureau Local Governments 2022 · regulations.gov v4 · UK petition.parliament.uk, EU ECI, Bundestag e-petitions
The progressive data stack is being renegotiated. Eighty of the largest coalition data-operations orgs are running RFPs for its replacement.
The incumbent voter-file platform has shed engineering capacity and is priced for enterprises its customers no longer are. Switching costs — list migration, integration rewiring, staff retraining — kept orgs in place. The 2026 RFP window is when those costs get shared across the coalition rather than borne alone.
The Movement Cooperative next-generation voter DB RFP (80+ member orgs) · Higher Ground Labs, Where do we go from here? (2024) · Sifry, Living with VANxiety (2023)
Private beta. Founding organizations.
We're onboarding advocacy organizations individually — not self-serve, not a free trial. Direct access to the engineering team. Your use case shapes the platform.
- Import
- Bring your supporter list. We district-match and start the verification funnel on day one.
- Ship
- Produce your first verified proof packet during the beta period.
- Shape
- Founding partners get a permanent voice in the roadmap. Your feedback directly informs the product.